---

There's a Lebanese food festival coming up in Watervliet, sponsored by St. Ann's Maronite Catholic Church. But not all the parishioners dishing up Middle Eastern delicacies will be Lebanese -- or had been raised Maronite.

Beverly Traa is a Schenectady native who went in search of a parish with her husband, James, when the couple moved back to the area after living in Atlanta, Ga., for three years. (Mr. Traa just passed away May 26.)

The Traas found a brownstone in Troy to live in, but "the other major decision is where to go to church," Mrs. Traa said. "We settled on one, but it never really felt like home."

Daylight Savings
It was a seasonal time change that led the couple to St. Ann's: When Daylight Savings Time began, they missed their regular Mass one Sunday morning and quickly looked for a church that was having a liturgy they could attend.

They ended up at St. Ann's former site in Troy. (The parish moved to Watervliet in 2013.)

Mrs. Traa was impressed with the Eastern Catholic liturgy, which is celebrated in English with some responses in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. The newcomer said she was struck by hearing the consecration in Aramaic: "It was so moving and beautiful."

Eastern-rite Catholic churches are united with the pope. The Maronite Church, whose members are mostly of Lebanese origin, can be traced back to St. Maron, a third-century hermit. St. Ann's, although it's in the Albany Diocese, is ecclesiastically tied to the Brooklyn-based Eparchy of St. Maron. An eparchy is the Eastern-rite equivalent of a diocese.

Glorious food
At St. Ann's, "After every single Mass, they put on a spread" of food, Mrs. Traa recalled. "When we walked in[to the coffee hour], the priest was going to make home visits, and he was going to bring each person a cross. Members stopped us, engaged us in conversation, asked us to stay for coffee - and there were all these delicacies we were not familiar with! Then the priest brought us one of the crosses."

The Traas immediately felt at home, but went back and forth between attending their former parish and St. Ann's for a while. In the end, they found they enjoyed the fact that three or four generations of families attend St. Ann's, and that parishioners are known for their great kindness despite the small size of the parish, which has about 60 families.

"It's interesting to me the number of youth who are schooled well enough in their culture to be able to speak the [Lebanese] language," Mrs. Traa remarked. "In America, we are fighting to hold onto the traditional family; [at St. Ann's], they don't seem to have any problem with that."

When the church moved to Watervliet, taking over a long-vacant Methodist church and renovating it over a period of years, Mrs. Traa said she saw parishioners' "spirit of generosity" attracting other residents of that city who hadn't been Maronite Catholics before.

Home, sweet church
She now serves as a greeter at Mass and is involved with a new parish life-issues ministry; her husband received a medal not long ago designating him a "jewel of the church" for his service to the parish, which touched him, since he was not Lebanese, either.

After five years at St. Ann's, Mrs. Traa is satisfied that she and her husband "found the community we were looking for -- without giving up anything. We are as Roman Catholic as we are Maronite."

She was looking forward to the upcoming food festival. "The baklava is always going to be number-one, and they do things like spinach pie and cookies and other delicacies," she said.

To prepare, "I chop parsley. That's my job," she added, laughing. And "they do not just throw it in a bowl. They are very particular!"[[In-content Ad]]

---