Saint Sharbel Makhluf, Priest

Youssef Makhlouf was born in 1828 at Bekaa Kafra, a mountain village of northern Lebanon, into a poor Maronite family. In 1851 he entered the Lebanese Maronite Order, taking the name Charbel, after an early martyr, and lived at the monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya. He was ordained a priest in 1859.

In 1875 he was allowed to move to the hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul above the monastery, where he spent the last twenty-three years of his life in silence, prayer and manual work. On 16 December 1898 he suffered a stroke while celebrating the liturgy, and died on 24 December. Reports of a light over his grave and of his body remaining incorrupt drew pilgrims to Annaya, as they still do. He was canonized in 1977.