A Grain of Wheat in San Antonio
St. George Maronite Catholic Church stands on fifteen acres of land on Babcock Road on the northwest side of San Antonio, where it has served the oldest Maronite Catholic community in Texas and the southwestern United States since 1925. Eleven families founded the parish that year, and three generations of Maronite families have since built three different churches, welcomed a long succession of missionary priests from Lebanon, and developed a campus that now hosts worship, education, athletics, and cultural celebrations. The parish describes itself as "an inclusive community for all who believe in the love and spirit of the church," a phrase drawn from its own tagline.
From Pecos Street to Babcock Road
The story of St. George begins in January 1925, when eleven men of faith met at the Catholic Women's House in the Diocese of San Antonio to ask Bishop Arthur Drossaerts for a Maronite priest. Anne Casseb and her son Solomon Casseb, Sr., pledged to match every dollar raised so that the new mission could afford a priest and a place to live. That priest was Fr. George Aziz, a Lebanese Maronite cleric who arrived that summer and celebrated the first Maronite Masses in the city in the chapel of Santa Rosa Infirmary each Sunday morning at nine o'clock.
By July of 1925 the committee had bought a small two-story frame house at 426 North Pecos Street at the corner of Martin Street. For almost six years Fr. Aziz celebrated Mass on the first floor and lived on the second. When Fr. Aziz was transferred in 1931, Fr. Elias Nagem took his place and pushed the community to build a proper church on the site. The Cassebs pledged ten thousand dollars toward construction, and the new church was dedicated on September 25, 1932. Fr. Nagem died on June 29, 1939, after months of illness. A brief succession of priests served the parish during the 1940s, including Fr. Anthony Daddah from Lebanon and Fr. Alexander C. Wangler as interim pastor.
The young parish was forced to relocate when IH-35 cut through its neighborhood in the early 1950s. Fr. John Trad, who had arrived from the Becharrie District of North Lebanon in early 1948, led a contentious debate between members who wanted to rebuild on North Frio and Morales Streets and those who preferred a site on San Pedro Avenue. The vote split thirty-eight to thirty-nine. Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio cast the deciding vote for Frio Street, and the church on North Pecos was taken apart brick by brick and reassembled in its new home in 1952, complete with new terrazzo floors.
For fifteen years the rebuilt church served the community, but the Urban Renewal Agency condemned the site in the late 1960s. Fr. Wlademer Akekee, who arrived in 1967, faced the crisis with the families, who unanimously agreed to buy land and build again. In 1974 the parish purchased 15.4 acres on Babcock Road. Fr. Bernard Khachan arrived that same year and led the families in clearing the land, building a church hall, and later a rectory. The hall was dedicated in 1976 by the Most Reverend Francis M. Zayek, the first Maronite bishop for the United States. The new church, designed by parishioner-architect Larry Raba and built by parishioner-contractor Mitchell Battros, was finished in 1979 and dedicated in 1980 by Archbishop Zayek.
The parish kept building. Classrooms and meeting facilities were added to the hall complex by 1987. In 1994 the parish acquired a second five-acre tract at the southwest corner of Hollyhock and Babcock Road, opening the way for further development. Fr. John Al-Nahal led the design and construction of the Maronite Community Center, with a groundbreaking held in 2000 - the seventy-fifth anniversary of the parish - and the completed building dedicated in 2005, with its regulation-size basketball court, cafeteria area, and classrooms. In 2007 the parish launched the Lebanese Food Festival, which has since become one of San Antonio's distinctive food and cultural events. In October 2011, Patriarch Bechara Peter El-Rai made St. George a stop on his pastoral visit to the United States, and in 2012 the parish hosted the forty-ninth annual convention of the National Apostolate of Maronites.
An Antiochene Church in Communion with Rome
St. George belongs to the Maronite Church, an Antiochene Syriac church that traces its origins to a fourth- and fifth-century monk named Maron who lived on the mountains of Cyrrhus in northern Syria. His followers gathered into communities of men and women who lived in the open air and were eventually organized into a monastic church that took his name. Early Maronites settled heavily in the valley of the Orontes and Apamea, where they built the monastery called "The House of Maron," and in Antioch and Edessa. Missionary monks carried the faith into Lebanon, where they turned pagan temples into churches and took refuge in the mountains during the persecutions that followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. The Maronite Church today describes itself, in the words of the Maronite Patriarchal Synod of 2003-2006, as "an Antiochene Syriac Church with a special liturgical heritage, in full union with the Holy See and the pope, and embodied in her Lebanese and Eastern environment, and the Countries of Expansion."
As an Eastern Catholic church, the Maronite Church is in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and accepts the leadership of the pope of Rome, while keeping its own liturgy, traditions, and canon law. In the United States, Pope Paul VI established the first Maronite exarchate in 1966; it became the Eparchy of Saint Maron in 1971, headquartered first in Detroit and then in Brooklyn. In 1994 Pope John Paul II established the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, headquartered in Los Angeles and led today by Bishop Elias A. Zaidan. St. George falls within that western eparchy. The majority of Maronite immigrants to the United States came from Lebanon. The first Maronite mission in the United States was established in 1890 by Fr. Peter Korkomaz, and the number of Maronite churches grew to thirty-seven by 1924. In 1961 the Maronite Seminary in Washington, D.C., was dedicated, producing the first American-born Maronite priests, and in 1963 the National Apostolate of Maronites, known as NAM, was founded to keep Maronite heritage, tradition, and culture alive in the United States.
Inside the Maronite Divine Liturgy
The Maronite Mass is divided into three parts: the preparation of the faithful and the offering, the consecration of the bread and wine, and Holy Communion. The first part begins with the preparation of the offerings on a smaller altar to the right of the main altar, known as the "preparation's table," where the bread and wine are arranged before being carried in procession to the main altar. The word "Bourshana," the Syriac word for the consecrated host, means "the choicest of the offerings" and points back to the early Christian custom of bringing the finest bread and wine to be set apart for the sacrifice.
After the offerings are prepared, the priest makes his own preparation, confessing before the altar and asking the congregation to pray for him. Then come the opening prayers and the blessing of the incense, a prayer to the Virgin Mary or one of St. Ephrem's hymns, the singing of the Trisagion, and readings from the Epistles and the Gospel, followed by a homily and the recitation of the Creed. The faithful bow their heads in accordance with an ancient Maronite custom rather than genuflect in the Roman Catholic fashion.
The second part of the Mass centers on the Anaphora, a word from the Greek meaning the repetition of the words and deeds of Christ. The Antiochene Maronite Catholic Church is one of the richest liturgical traditions in the world, with at least seventy-two anaphorae in its treasury; the present reformed Mass uses the Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles. The priest faces the congregation when he addresses it directly, and turns to the altar when he prays to the Lord. The text of the Mass is in the vernacular for most of the rite, but the words of Consecration, the Epiclesis, and certain hymns and blessings are kept in the original Aramaic, the language spoken by Christ, to remind the faithful of their Maronite heritage. After the transfer of the offerings to the main altar, the ceremony of peace passes from the altar to the congregation, and the Eucharistic prayer unfolds as a thanksgiving to God the Father, a remembrance of God the Son, and an invocation of the Holy Spirit, with the priest kneeling on both knees and the congregation genuflecting at the Epiclesis.
The third part of the Mass begins with the breaking of the consecrated host and the mingling of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Chalice is raised before the faithful, the Lord's Prayer is recited, and the priest invites the congregation to receive Holy Communion with the ancient words "Sancta Sanctis," holy things for holy people. The Mass closes with prayers of thanksgiving, a final blessing, and announcements about baptisms and parish events. For Ash Monday, Palm Sunday, the Commemoration of the Finding of the Cross, weddings, funerals, and baptisms, a special liturgy appropriate to the occasion replaces the usual prayers prescribed for the preparation of the faithful.
Worship Schedule
St. George celebrates the Maronite Divine Liturgy Tuesday through Friday at 11:30 a.m., Saturday evening at 5:00 p.m., and twice on Sunday at 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. The Rosary is prayed each Sunday at 10:15 a.m. On the twenty-second of each month, a Healing Mass with a procession of St. Sharbel draws the community together for prayer and devotion. On the last Sunday of each month, an Arabic Liturgy is celebrated at 12:30 p.m., giving Arabic-speaking parishioners the chance to worship in their first language and connecting the parish more directly to its Lebanese roots. Holy Day schedules are announced as they are set.
The Parish Campus
The Babcock Road campus is the heart of parish life. The church, designed by a parishioner and built by a parishioner, anchors the property, and the Maronite Community Center, completed in 2005, stands alongside it with a regulation-size basketball court, cafeteria area, and classrooms. The Phoenician Event Center, on the same property, hosts weddings, receptions, and large parish gatherings. Across Babcock Road sits the MCC Activity Center and Gym, a separate facility used for sports, school programs, and community recreation. Together, the buildings make the campus a hub not only for worship but for the cultural, educational, and athletic life of the parish.
Clergy and Staff
The parish is served by Fr. Ronald Eid as Pastor, Fr. Joseph Harb as Associate Priest, Deacon Thomas Billimek, and Subdeacon Ray Dustin. Deborah Fernandez directs the music ministry and accompanies the St. George Lebanese Folk Dancers. Fernando Fernandez serves as Gym Director for the parish's activity center, and a Youth Minister is being sought to lead the parish's youth program. The parish has also been served for years by priests of the Congregation of Maronite Lebanese Missionaries.
Heritage and Community Life
The Lebanese Food Festival, launched in 2007, has grown into one of the parish's signature events, drawing visitors from across San Antonio for traditional food, music, and dance. The St. George Lebanese Folk Dancers have performed at the Texas Folklife Festival for forty-eight years and are a regular feature of parish celebrations. The parish supports the St. George Maronite Ameleb Heritage Foundation, which offers a scholarship and award program to students enrolled in community college, college, university, graduate, or professional and vocational schools. Faith formation classes for children and adults are offered throughout the year, and the parish publishes a weekly Sunday bulletin. Services are livestreamed on the parish's YouTube channel, and giving is available online.
St. George lives at the meeting point of three identities: a parish in the Latin Diocese of San Antonio, a Maronite Catholic community in full communion with Rome, and a Lebanese-American congregation rooted in the Syriac tradition of Antioch. The pioneering families who founded the parish in 1925, the priests who traveled from Lebanon to serve them, and the generations who built three churches on three sites have left a community that is still growing, still proud of its past, and still building for the future.