By HANNAH BROCKHAUS
ANNAYA, Lebanon (CNA) — St. Charbel Makhlouf is known in Lebanon for the miraculous healings of those who visit his tomb to seek his intercession — both Christians and Muslims.
“St. Charbel has no geographic or confessional limits. Nothing is impossible for [his intercession] and when people ask [for something], he answers,” Fr. Louis Matar, coordinator of the Shrine of St. Charbel in Annaya, Lebanon, told Catholic News Agency.
Speaking in Arabic with the help of an interpreter, Matar said the shrine, which encompasses the monastery where the Maronite Catholic priest, monk, and hermit lived for nearly 20 years, receives approximately 4 million visitors a year, including both Christians and Muslims.
Matar, who is responsible for archiving the thousands of medically verified healings attributed to the intercession of the Maronite priest-monk, said that many miraculous cures have been obtained by Muslims.
Since 1950, the year the monastery began to formally record the miraculous healings, they have archived more than 29,000 miracles, Matar said. Prior to 1950, miracles were verified only through the witness of a priest. Now, with more advanced medical technology available, alleged miracles require medical documents demonstrating the person’s initial illness and later, their unexplainable good health.
One of the miracles documented by Matar at the end of December 2018 was that of a 45-year-old Italian woman. Suffering from a neurological disease, she was hospitalized after it was discovered she had tried to commit suicide by consuming acid.
In the hospital, the doctors discovered that the damage to her esophagus and intestines was so extensive, “the last way possible to cure her was believing in God and praying,” Matar commented.
The woman’s parents began to pray, inviting others to pray with them. A religious sister of the Maronite rite heard about the prayer request and gave them holy oil from St. Charbel. After they spread the oil on the suffering woman’s stomach, chest, and head, she was cured.
This was just one of seven miracles archived that month, Matar said, calling each one “a phenomenon.”
“St. Charbel is a tool to reach God,” he said.
The Shrine of St. Charbel is composed of the Monastery of St. Maron, where the saint lived for 19 years with great devotion to prayer, manual labor, and contemplative silence; and the nearby hermitage where he lived a rigorous asceticism and profound union with God for the last 23 years of his life.
At the monastery, pilgrims can visit a church built in 1840, a small museum with artifacts and relics from the saint, and the site of his first grave. St. Charbel’s tomb, since 1952, is located inside a special cave-like chapel built into the property.
Even while he was alive, Charbel’s superiors observed God’s “supernatural power” at work in his life, and even some Muslims knew him as a wonder-worker.
Deeply devoted to God’s eucharistic presence, he suffered a stroke while celebrating the Divine Liturgy of the Maronite Catholic Church on December 16, 1898, dying on Christmas Eve of that year. He was canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI. His feast day is July 24.
Throughout history God has chosen certain individuals to work stunning miracles that reveal His great power and love for all of humanity. Among them, St. Charbel Makhlouf has proven time and time again to be a powerful intercessor through whom God desires to reveal His healing touch.
He was a humble and holy hermit whose weaknesses became great strengths in the hand of God.
Charbel was born in 1828 in Lebanon and was raised in a poor shepherd family. As he grew, Charbel was attracted to the hermit’s life of the desert and eventually entered the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya. He was faithful to his duties in religious life and drew closer to God every day. After many years Charbel felt God calling him again to become a hermit and was granted permission to live the rest of his life at a hermitage set on a hill near the monastery.
Charbel died on Christmas Eve at the age of 70, and when his body was later exhumed it was found to be incorrupt. A holy oil was discovered flowing from the tomb, which has since been the source of numerous miracles.
For example, a blind woman from Arizona was healed in 2016 after venerating the relics of St. Charbel. The medical committee investigating the miracle admitted, “We have no medical explanation and therefore believe this to be a miraculous healing through the intercession of St. Charbel.”
In France, a baby boy was destined to die, so the family used some oil from St. Charbel’s tomb and prayed a novena to St. Charbel for a miraculous healing. According to the family, “The doctors told us that he would sleep more and more and eat less and less. Instead, he was becoming increasingly alert and continued to drink his bottles in small doses. At the end of September, Come was evaluated again. To our joy and to the astonishment of the doctors, his condition had improved so much that it was determined he would live….The Blessed Virgin and St. Charbel protected him.”
There are many more miracles reported on this website dedicated to St. Charbel, proving that God enjoys working miracles through this humble Lebanese saint.
While we are never “guaranteed” a miracle when praying to God through a saint, the process can often transform our hearts and help us be prepared for whatever plan God has designed.
Here is the one novena (usually prayed for nine consecutive days) to St. Charbel that many turn to in their time of need.
“Lord, infinitely Holy and Glorified in your Saints, you have inspired Charbel, the saint monk, to lead the perfect life of a hermit. We thank You for granting him the blessing and the strength to detach himself from the world so that the heroism of the monastic virtues of poverty, obedience, and chastity, could triumph in his hermitage. We beseech You to grant us the grace of loving and serving You, following his example. Almighty God, who has manifested the power of St. Charbel’s intercession through his countless miracles and favors, grant us …[Mention your intention here] through his intercession. Amen.”
(Wanderer Editor’s Note: Some of the above information about St. Charbel came from Aleteia.org)
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