Saint Charbel Makhluf

Charbel Makhlouf, O.L.M. (born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf; Arabic: شربل مخلوف, May 8, 1828 – December 24, 1898) was a Lebanese Maronite monk and priest. During his life, he obtained a wide reputation for holiness, and for his ability to unite Christians, Muslims and Druze. He was a member of the Baladites. He is known among Lebanese Christians as the "Miracle Monk of Lebanon" because of the favours received through his intercession, especially after prayers are said at his tomb in the Monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, Lebanon. He was beatified in 1965 and canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI. His feast is celebrated on 24 July by the Latin Church, and on the third Sunday of July by the Maronite Church. The Medal of Saint Charbel was created in his honor. Youssef Antoun Makhlouf was born on May 8, 1828, one of five children, in the mountain village of Bekaa Kafra, the highest by elevation in Lebanon. His father, Antoun Zaarour Makhlouf, was a mule driver who died in August 1831 while returning from corvée for the Turkish army, leaving his wife Brigitta (née Chidiac) a widow to care for their children. She remarried a man who went on to Holy Orders and became the parish priest of Bekaa Kafra. Makhlouf was raised in this pious home, and became drawn to the lives of the saints and the eremitical life practiced by two of his uncles. As a young boy, he was responsible for the family's small herd of cows. He would take the herd to a nearby grotto, where he had enshrined an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He would spend the day in prayer. In 1851, Makhlouf left his family to begin training as a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order at the Monastery of Our Lady in Mayfouq. He later transferred to the Monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, in the Byblos District near Beirut. Here, he received his habit and took the religious name Charbel, after the 2nd-century Christian martyr of Antioch. He made his final religious profession in the Order on November 1, 1853.