5/26/2023 0 Comments Saint sharbel pray for usHe died on Christmas Eve 1898 and was interred in the monastery chapel the next day. He spent the next twenty three years living the solitary life. He made his final profession as a monk in 1853 and in 1875 he was given permission to live as a hermit. He became a monk and took the name Charbel after a second century martyr. As a boy he tended the family’s flock of sheep and goats and would spend the day praying at a small grotto where he had installed an icon of the Blessed Virgin. ![]() Two of the boy’s uncles were hermits and Youssef wanted to follow their example. ![]() His father was a mule driver who died when Youssef was only three. St Charbel was born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf in Lebanon in 1828. He introduced me to the Maronite liturgy and I learned about two of their modern saints- St Rafka and St Charbel Makhlouf whose feast day is today. We have a Maronite congregation in Greenville and their priest, Fr Bart Leon has become a good friend. ![]() So I met the saints: St John Neumann, St Elizabeth Ann Seton, the Jesuit martyrs and more.Īnother part of that diversity was the presence of the Eastern Rite churches. I had never been a Catholic in the United States so I had to learn about the Catholic history. One of the great gifts I experienced when we returned from England to the USA was the great diversity in the American Catholic Church.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |