December 20, 2014

St. Charbel Makhlouf

St. Charbel Makhlouf was born in Lebanon in 1828. After spending his first sixteen years as a priest in a monastery, he retired to the Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul in 1875. For the next twenty-three years, he lived a very austere life, engaging in various forms of mortification.

His life essentially became one large episode of adoration for the Blessed Eucharist. Each day he prepared all morning for Mass, which he said at 11:00 a.m., and then spent the rest of the day in thanksgiving.

While saying Mass one day, he suffered a seizure. The Holy Eucharist had to be pried from his fingers. Eight days later, on Christmas Eve, he died.

The body of this Maronite monk remained incorrupt for over fifty years after his death, despite being found during one exhumation to be floating on a bed of water and mud. He was beatified in 1965 and from that time his body no longer remained exempt from the laws of nature.

Based on an entry in My Daily Eucharist, by Joan Carter McHugh, containing an excerpt from The Incorruptibles by Joan Carroll Cruz. Additional source: http://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2010/10/saint-charbel-sharbel-makhlouf-maronite.html

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