ST CHARBEL MAKHLOUF - FEAST DAY 24TH JULY 2025

A Lebonese Maronite, St Charbel is known for both his holiness and his ability to unite Christians, Muslims and Druze.

Youssef Makhlouf was born in the year 1828 in the mountainous village of Bekaa’kafra – said to be the highest village in Lebanon. It was an arena of conflict between the Ottomans and the Egyptian army at the time. The resources of the land were pillaged, homes were confiscated and villagers taken way for forced labour. At a very young age, Youssef himself experienced the loss of his father who died while returning from Corvée in the Turkish forces – an unpaid, forced labour.

At the age of 23, Youssef joined the Lebanese Maronite Order, entering first the monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouq, followed by the monastery of Saint Maroun, Annaya. He took the name Charbel, and after professing his vows, he continued his studies in the monastery of Kfifan. He was ordained a priest in 1859.  

A year later, while Father Charbel was a monk in the monastery of Saint Maroun, Annaya, Mount Lebanon was experiencing deadly civil war. This affair led to the martyrdom of forty monks from the Lebanese Maronite Order. Despite the death of his brother monks, Father Charbel remained persistent in his prayers, in his devotion to his vows and in his spiritual growth. This led him to enter the hermitage in the year 1875. 

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, while Father Charbel was living in the hermitage, Mount Lebanon experienced the worst crisis in the 19^th century. Unable to compete with Chinese silk which flooded the European market at the time, the Lebanese economy was hit with what was known as the ‘Silk Crisis’, forcing thousands of families to emigrate to Americas. Among those who emigrated to Mexico were Saint Charbel’s brothers. Yet again, the hermit Father Charbel was faced with the pain of losing his family and loved ones.

On 16 December 1898, while celebrating Holy Mass, Father Charbel was struck with hemiplegia. He spent the next eight days in excruciating pain. His only weapon was prayer,  and he persisted in his prayers until he died on the night of Christmas Eve of that same year.

"Yes, the kind of holiness practiced by Charbel Makhlouf is of great weight, not only for the glory of God, but for the vitality of the Church…Pastors are needed, who gather the people of God…We need theologians…evangelizers and missionaries…catechists…people who are directly dedicated to helping their brothers…But we also need people who offer themselves as victims for the salvation of the world, in a freely accepted penance, in an unceasing prayer of intercession…in a passionate search for the Absolute, testifying that God is worth worshiping and loving for himself. The lifestyle of these religious, of these monks, of these hermits is not offered to everyone as an imitable charisma; but in their pure state, in a radical way, they embody a spirit from which no faithful of Christ is exempt, they exercise a function which the Church cannot do without, they remind us of a salutary way for all".

Pope Paul VI, Homily for the canonization of Saint Charbel