RIGHTEOUS LIKE THE SUN | KAIROS GLOBAL | DECEMBER 2023

Author: Bro Ramzi Hitti

Intro: Bro Ramzi Hitti introduces the patron saint of his country, St Charbel Makhlouf, the Lebanese Maronite monk. 

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).

According to Church and liturgical tradition, the feast of a saint is celebrated on the day of his death, because it signifies his birth in heaven. However we do not celebrate the feast of the patron saint of Lebanon, Saint Charbel, on the date of his death because he died on Christmas Eve 1898. Therefore, our Maronite Church celebrates his feast on the twenty-third of July, and the Lebanese Maronite Order, to which the saint belongs, decided to move the celebration of his feast again to the third Sunday of July. 

On this feast, our Maronite liturgy presents Matthew 13:36-43, as a special reading to contemplate the merits and attributes of our saint. He lived like these righteous people, who shone like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Who is Saint Charbel?

Early life 

Charbel Makhlouf, born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf in Biqa’ Kafra (Northern Lebanon) on 8 May 1828, was a Lebanese priest and hermit-monk of the Maronite Church. 

Youssef was the youngest of five children to a poor but respectable family. His father died when he was young. From a very young age, Youssef was a pious boy. Every day he would shepherd the few sheep that his father had left behind. While the animals grazed, he would go to a nearby cave, falling into deep prayer before an image of the Virgin Mary. He transformed this cave into a small grotto, and it became, in a way, his first hermitage. Youssef studied Arabic and Syriac in the village school. 

Monastic life

Following his two hermit uncles who lived in the monastery of St Anthony of Kozhayahn in the Saint Valley (Qadisha, North-Lebanon), Youssef aspired for the hermetic life. In 1851, aged 23, either responding to a supernatural call or fearing the opposition of his mother and uncle, he suddenly left his family home during the night, without warning anyone, without even saying goodbye to his mother! Leaving his village, Youssef went by foot to Our-Lady of Mayfouq monastery (District of Jbeil, Mount-Lebanon). There he took the name Charbel in honour of a second century martyr in the Antiochene Church. After his first monastic year, his superiors sent him to Saint-Maron monastery in the village of Annaya. 

He completed his theological studies, then was ordained priest on July 23, 1859. He returned to Saint-Maron monastery, where he lived in prayer and voluntary seclusion for 16 years. 

On February 15, 1875, aspiring to an ever intense hermetic life, he joined, with permission of his superiors, the small isolated hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul. There, in silence and perfect obedience to the Church, Father Charbel lived humbly and practised more deeply every day all the Christian virtues, dividing his time between adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, humble manual labour and almost perpetual prayer of the Rosary. 

At the urging of his superiors, he agreed to sometimes welcome the faithful who came to see him in the hermitage, asking for spiritual advice. He always formulated his advice briefly, with very simple words that immediately touched the soul of his interlocutor.

Spirituality

Saint Charbel was a man of challenge and decision, which made him an exemplary monk, identifying himself with Christ until the end. He realised his Christian, monastic and priestly sentiments, and worked to deepen them and lived with the challenges they contained. He built this consciousness on three virtues: desire, work, and integrity. He had a strong desire to live the faith and love God. Saint Charbel therefore climbed the ladder of virtues and fought against the trials and temptations of the world. 

He distinguished himself, making a difference in Christian, monastic and priestly life. Our saint embodied this intense desire through humble, hidden, honest and constructive actions. He worked and prayed everywhere, obeyed and fulfilled every request and command, stripped himself of himself and wanted nothing for himself, neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor anything else. Rather, he gave with all his heart, mind and strength. It was enough for him to love God and please him with every good deed.

He steadfastly strove to acquire the virtues which purified him of all impurities. He was distinguished by deep verbal and contemplative prayer, which became his state of life. With poverty, God enriched him; with constant austerity, he raised his heart to divine riches; with conviction and joy he freed him from the affairs of the world. He lacked everything and became rich in God.

Death 

On December 16, 1898, while reciting the liturgical prayer ‘Father of Truth’ during his morning Mass, assisted by an acolyte; Father Charbel was struck by paralysis. Bedridden in his hermitage, he entered into an agony which lasted eight days, during which he never ceased to repeat this single word of liturgical prayer: ‘Father of Truth, here is your son sacrificed as a ransom offering…’

On 24 December at 5 pm, during Christmas Vigil, he died. When he died his superior recorded this comment in the register: ‘Faithful to his wishes, of exemplary obedience, his conduct was more angelic than human.’

Charbel in today’s World  

Since his death, he has been a holy miracle worker. His tomb, located in Saint-Maron monastery, has become a place of pilgrimage. 

This is how Charbel, the Maronite, monk and priest, shone in the Kingdom of heaven on earth, which is the Church. By declaring him blessed in 1965, and then in 1977, holy on the altars of the Universal Church by Pope Paul VI, he shines like the sun, glorifying himself in the kingdom of the Heavenly Father. And, like the sun, shines on our earth distributing the blessings of heaven everywhere and to all persons of any religion, race or nationality. 

Brother Ramzi Hitti is a life-committed brother of the Lebanese Maronite Missionaries Association. He works in the field of religious media and lives in the Monastery of St John the Beloved in Jounieh, Lebanon.