One of the reasons that I like to share Saint stories is to help us all learn more about Saints that we are unfamiliar with. I was helped with this not too long ago when a friend happened to mention St. Charbel Makhlouf. St. Charbel is very well known and much loved in the Eastern Church, but he is barely known in the West.
Charbel was born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf on May 8, 1828, in Lebanon. He was one of five children of a mule driver. His father died when he was only 3, and his mother remarried. His stepfather went on to Holy Orders and became the local Parish Priest. Raised in this pious home, Makhlouf was drawn to the lives of the Saints and the eremitical life as lived by two of his uncles.
He left home in 1851 to enter the monastery of Our Lady in Mayfouq to train as a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order. When he received his habit, he took the religious name of Charbel after the 2nd century Christian Martyr of Antioch. He was ordained in 1859 and lived a life of severe asceticism. In 1875, he was given permission by his abbot to live as a hermit in a hermitage under the care of the monastery. He lived the next 23 years alone until his death by stroke in 1898.
A few months after Makhlouf's death, a bright light was seen surrounding his tomb. The monastery superiors opened the tomb to find his body still intact. During the investigation for his cause for canonization, Makhlouf's body was exhumed 3 times in the 1950's - once on tape for television. Each time, his body was found to be incorrupt. When his body was exhumed a final time in 1976, prior to his canonization in 1977, only his skeleton remained.
St. Charbel Makhlouf is known at the "Miracle Monk of Lebanon" because of the favors received through his intercession. He is the Patron Saint of Lebanon. His feast day is celebrated on the third Sunday in July on the Maronite calendar and on July 24 on the Roman calendar.
St. Charbel, pray for us.
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