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Father Youssef-Mariam Hanna, C.F.R., had a good life—a nice apartment, a nice car and many other things. He also had a good job as a computer programmer, but felt a question in his heart that told him God wanted something more for him.
Everywhere he turned, it seemed that God’s request in Luke 18 came around to haunt him. The passage tells of Jesus’ discourse with a rich man who wonders what he has to do to get into heaven. “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’”
“I used to hate that!” said Father Youssef-Mariam with a laugh. “I was so attached to my things.”
It was very difficult to pull that first shirt from his closet and pack it away to give it to the poor, he recalled. However, once he began to give things away, he received something in return: peace.
“I just wanted to get rid of that burden,” he said. “As St. Francis used to say, ‘The bitterness became sweet,’” Father Youssef-Mariam said.
He was born in Lebanon to George and Yvonne Hanna; his mother is now deceased. He has three sisters. Father Youssef-Mariam, 49, entered the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in 2002 and professed final vows in 2008. As he displayed each knot on the rope tied around his waist and his gray friar’s robe, he said, “I took three vows, of poverty, chastity and obedience.”
“I see they are helping me to prepare for heaven,” he said.
Father Youssef-Mariam is a Catholic of the Maronite Rite, an Eastern Rite of the Church in communion with Rome. Maronites “share the same faith, Catechism and the same pope,” he said. The Mass has some differences, with parts of the liturgy celebrated in Aramaic. The traditions are based on the early apostles, as noted in the Acts of the Apostles, who founded a church at Antioch.
Father Youssef-Mariam is a bi-ritual priest who will be able to offer Latin and Eastern Rite Masses. Maronite Catholics are “breathing with both lungs” as they hold close to traditions of the East and the West, said Father Youseff as he quoted newly canonized St. John Paul II’s call for unity between Eastern and Western Christianity.
He will be ordained to the priesthood at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn on Sunday, May 18, by Bishop Gregory J. Mansour of the Eparchy of St. Maron.
Before Father Youssef-Mariam took his vows, he worked as a computer programmer in Florida, and earlier in Canada. In Florida, he began to wonder, “Why don’t I worship?”
“There was something about going back to the Mass,” he said. “When they consecrated the bread, I was very moved. I started going to Mass every day,” he said. In fact, he would rush to attend Mass early each morning before he went to work.
As a priest, Father Youssef-Mariam hopes to minister to the poor—he will be stationed in Honduras once he is ordained. He also hopes to participate in prison ministry and do outreach to pregnant women considering abortion.
“I want everyone to taste God’s mercy,” he said.
Father Youssef-Mariam will celebrate his first Mass in the Maronite Rite at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn on Sunday, May 25, at 11 a.m. Father Glenn Sudano, C.F.R., his spiritual director, will deliver the homily.
