Fr John Salter writes:
Visitors to the Melkite Patriarchate at Raboueh, Lebanon, will have received a warm welcome from Sister van den Plas (pictured, left, with Patriarch Maximos V and a colleague). It was she, too, who produced the Patriarchal revue “Le Lien” and worked so hard for the Melkite community.
Lucienne was born in Belgium in 1922 and was fluent in French and Flemish. She received a classical education, and for her Greek and Latin were a joy. She received her licences des Lettres et en Langues and then enrolled in the Societe des Auxiliaires de l’Apostolat, and in Lourdes at La Maison de Formation de la Societe, she passed two years in the novitiate and began her pastoral work between 1948 and 1949. During these years Monsignor Georges Hakim (then Archbishop of Galilee and the future Melkite Patriarch Maximos V) knew this association and appreciated greatly its spirituality and he consulted with Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh, who invited the Association Apostolique to work in the Patriarchate of the Melkite Greek Catholics.
So it was that Lucienne arrived in the Lebanon on 5 January 1950, having visited Rome during that Holy Year and gained a plenary indulgence having visited the Four Major Basilicas. In the first week in Lebanon Lucienne soon became familiar with the Byzantine Liturgy and the traditions and customs of the Lebanese. Her first field of action assigned by the Patriarch was to the College of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, where she directed French studies and the spiritual life of the students. In 1967 during the Patriarchate of Maximos V until 1980 (the time of the erection of Raboueh as the grand seminary and residence of the Patriarch), Lucienne served the college and the Patriarchate, and the Patriarch assigned to her the direction of “Le Lien”, With courage, strength and faithfulness Lucienne took on all that the Patriarchate assigned to her and she served faithfully and untiringly the Holy Synods, the Bishops, Priests, Seminarians and the personnel attached to the Patriarchate.
May the Lord God remember in His Kingdom his handmaid Catherine Lucienne, and may her memory be eternal!