FEAST OF SAINT SHARBEL (CHARBEL) MAKHLOUF, PRIEST, HERMIT- 24 JULY

SAINT SHARBEL (CHARBEL) MAKHLOUF, PRIEST, HERMIT- 24 JULY
Optional Memorial

Jousef Antoun Makhlouf was born in 1828, in the village of Bekaa Kafra, North Lebanon. The youngest of five children, he was baptized into the Maronite Rite of the Catholic Church. The Makhlouf family lived in the highest mountain village in Lebanon and were peasant farmers. His father, who died when Jousef was only three, was a mule driver. After his father’s death, his mother remarried; his stepfather later was ordained a priest where he ministered at the local parish. It is the long-standing custom within the Maronite Catholic Church that married men may become priests.

From a young age, Jousef lived a holy and devout life. Two of his uncles were hermits, and Jousef was inspired by their example. As a youth, he tended the cattle and often spent long periods of prayer in the wilderness while his cattle grazed. He was especially devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and set up a shrine to her in a nearby cave. From an early age, he knew God was calling him to the priesthood and the monastic life, especially as a hermit.

In 1851, at the age of twenty-three, Jousef left his family, never to return, and entered the Monastery of Our Lady in Mayfouq, of the Maronite Catholic Church. His mother later wrote to him saying, “If you weren’t to be a good religious, I would say to you: Come back home. But I know now that the Lord wants you in His service. And in my pain at being separated from you, I say to him, resigned: May He bless you, my child.” As a newly professed monk, Jousef took the name Sharbel, after Saint Charbel the Martyr, a second century military officer who was martyred in Antioch during a persecution by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

As a monk, Brother Sharbel longed to be a hermit and made the request to his superiors many times. For the first twenty-four years of his religious life, his superiors required that he live in community with the other monks. He was first transferred to the Monastery of Saint Maroun in Annaya where he professed his vows, was then sent to the Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina where he studied theology and philosophy, was ordained a priest in 1859 at the age of thirty-one, and returned to the Monastery of Saint Maroun where he remained for the next sixteen years.

Though some monks lived as hermits, that vocation was reserved for those who proved themselves capable of such solitude and asceticism. In 1875, at the age of forty-seven, Father Sharbel was given permission to enter the Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul to live as a hermit after a miraculous event took place. Some of his fellow monks decided to play a prank on him, filling his oil lamp with water. When he returned to his cell, he took his water-filled lamp, lit it, and it burned.

When the superiors heard about this, they inspected the lamp and found it to be filled with water. Unable to explain the miracle, the superiors saw it as a sign of his sanctity and agreed to permit him to become a hermit, according to his desire. He was sent to the Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul where he spent the next twenty-three years in solitude, embracing a strict regime of daily prayer, manual work, and severe asceticism. In 1898, at the age of seventy, Brother Sharbel suffered a stroke while offering Mass and died eight days later on Christmas Eve. He was buried in the ground without a coffin, according to the custom of his order.

Though Saint Sharbel lived a life of extraordinary holiness, it wasn’t until after his death that his holiness became well-known beyond the walls of the monasteries. After his burial, light was seen shining forth from his grave. This phenomenon drew the attention of many villagers who braved the cold and snow to see this mysterious light. After four months, permission was granted by the Church authorities to exhume his body. To the wonderment of all, his body was found to be completely incorrupt. His skin and joints were like one who was sleeping, soft and flexible.

He was cleaned of the dirt and mud from his gravesite and placed in a coffin in the monastery chapel. Then something else began to happen. Blood and sweat appeared to be coming forth from his pores, soaking his habit. It was so pronounced that his clothing needed to be changed twice a week. Finally, in 1927, his body was carefully examined by two physicians from Beiurut, placed in another coffin, and sealed in a tomb inside the monastery wall.

A little more than two decades later, a blood-like liquid was seen coming from the corner of the wall behind which Sharbel was buried. In the 1950’s, his tomb was opened three times. One of those times was broadcast on television and attended by high-ranking state officials, religious officials, medical doctors and scientists. In 1965 his body was found, once again, to be incorrupt and exuding the same blood and sweat.

Finally, in 1976, the year before his canonization, his body was found to have finally decayed, only the bones remaining. Interestingly, the decay of Sharbel’s body coincided with the early days of the devastating civil war that broke out in Lebanon in 1975. In 1976, the Damour massacre took place. Palestinians attacked the Maronite Christian town. Many of Damour’s residents were killed in battle, massacred, or forced to flee.

Ever since Sharbel’s burial, those who have visited his grave have attributed many miracles to his intercession. This was especially the case in the 1950’s when he was found incorrupt after fifty years. At that time, the monks started to keep track of miraculous cures that were attributed to Father Sharbel’s intercession. Within two years, they had a list of more than twelve thousand reported cures. Devotion to him and his incorrupt body spread rapidly. The devotion, coupled with reports of numerous miracles, led to a new evangelization across Lebanon.

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 Sharbel.

God uses us all in varied ways. Saint Sharbel was used after his death to evangelize Lebanon and beyond. In life, he was deeply united to God. He responded to his vocation as a hermit, living a life of daily penance, sacrifice, deep prayer, and humble service as a priest. As a result, he became one of the most influential saints of the past century. Saint Sharbel did great things for the simple reason that he prayed and followed the will of God. Each of us is capable of doing the same. Ponder God’s will for your life today and resolve to fulfill that mission without any hesitation. Doing so will enable our divine Lord to do great things through you in ways that you might not ever even know until Heaven.

PRAYER

Saint Sharbel, you were called into the solitary life of a monk and then a hermit, and you responded. You kept your eyes upon Christ, and He transformed your humble soul into a glorious beacon of light for the world to see. Please pray for me, that I will receive the grace I need to be faithful to the vocation God has given me and that I will respond with the same generosity and commitment that you manifested in your earthly life.

Saint Sharbel, pray for us. Jesus, we trust in You. Amen 

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ALSO CELEBRATED 

FEAST OF SAINT JOHN BOSTE – 24 JULY 

Saint John Boste is one of the forty English and Welsh Martyrs canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. He was a priest that served the faithful in our area at a time when it was illegal to say Mass or practice the Catholic faith. He was captured by the authorities in Waterhouses, now in the Parish of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, in 1593 and executed in what is now the grounds of St Leonard’s School, Durham in 1594. The feast day of all the English and Welsh martyrs is October 25th, but St John Boste is commemorated on the day of his execution, July 24th.

John Boste was born in Dufton, Westmorland (now Cumbria) and then went on to become a lecturer in logic at Oxford University, before returning to Westmorland to become a Master of the school at Appleby. He became more and more interested in the Catholic faith and in 1580 went to France to train to be a priest. He was ordained in early 1581 and quietly returned to England, landing in Hartlepool in April 1581. He then spent the next twelve years as a priest working in secret throughout England and sometimes in Scotland. After a little time in the South, he focussed on the North, and in particular the North East, with evidence of him being active in Newcastle and in Brancepeth Castle, home of Lady Margaret Neville.

John was a very effective missionary and the authorities were very keen for him to be captured. Lots of effort and resources went into this but for over ten years he always managed to evade capture. Lord Huntington, the president of the Council of the North and entrusted by Elizabeth I to capture John, was obsessed with hunting him down, describing him as “The Greatest Stag of the North”.

John Boste would often say Mass at the home of William and Grace Claxton, a house in the Brancepeth estate that became known as the Waterhouse. This was built by the banks of the Deerness in what was then a very densely wooded and isolated valley. Old farms called Low and High Waterhouse still exists, but the site of the original Waterhouse is unknown and was probably on the south side of the river between the modern positions of the villages of Waterhouses and Esh Winning. By 1593 William Claxton had been sent to prison for his Catholic sympathies but Boste still regularly attended to say mass for Grace and the rest of the household.

Unknown to Boste and the Claxton’s one of the household, Francis Eglesfield, was actually a secret agent employed by Huntington. Eglesfield pretended to be a faithful Catholic but was passing the information on all activities at the house. By early September word had been passed that Boste was staying at the house, and a group of armed searchers began watching it closely in secret.

On the tenth of September, Eglesfield gave a sign to the searchers and the raid began. Those present, including Lady Neville and Grace Claxton, were arrested, but they could not find Boste. Eglesfield insisted that he was there and so they began to hack into the walls, according to some accounts finding Boste in a priest hole behind the fireplace.

Imprisonment and Torture:
John Boste was taken to Durham, questioned, then sent to York, Windsor, and eventually, the Tower of London, where he was repeatedly questioned about his activities. He never denied going abroad illegally to become a priest, or regularly saying mass adding “that if he said not mass every day it was against his will.” This, however, was not enough for his captors who wanted him to incriminate others and admit to political motives, something he would not do.

He was imprisoned for almost a year and regularly tortured by being placed on the rack as well as being hung from the wall by his wrists. This permanently disabled him: “He walked all double, very slowly and with the assistance of a stick. When he sat down as he usually did on his heels, he was all on a heap, as if he had been all in pieces. Yet he would have got up of himself and spoken cheerfully to any that came to him”. It says much for his resilience that he even contemplated escape, but was unsuccessful.

The next morning, Wednesday 24 July, John Boste, along with two others, Ingram and Southwell, both converts to Catholicism, were brought back into court for sentence. The jury found him guilty of treason. The priests were then asked in turn whether they wished to say anything before the sentence was passed on them. Boste replied that he was glad that God had called him to this trial of his priesthood and profession, and was very sorry that the laws of his country did not allow the Catholic faith.

He was then sentenced: “You will be carried to the place from whence you came, and from thence you shall be carried either upon a sledge or upon a hurdle to the place of execution, there you will be hanged by the neck, presently you shall be cut down and your members shall be cut from you and cast into the fire even in your own sight, your bowels shall be pulled out of your bodies, and cast likewise into the fire, your heads shall be cut off, your bodies quartered and the parts of your bodies shall be disposed of as officers shall see occasion.”

The sentence was carried out that day. About 4.00 p.m. he was taken in a cart from the prison (most likely the Northgate of the Bailey), down Saddler Street, up through Millburngate to the “trees” outside the city at Dryburn, almost certainly within what is now the grounds of St. Leonard’s Catholic School. A large crowd lined the route, some hostile, many sympathetic. On arrival Boste climbed the hangman’s ladder, saying the Angelus. At the top, with the rope around his neck, he recited Psalm 114. When someone in the crowd shouted that he should seek forgiveness for his offences against the queen, he replied: “I never offended her … I take it upon my death, I never went about to offend her. I wish to God that my blood may be in satisfaction for her sins.”

At this, the Sherriff ordered for the hanging to begin. Having hung for about twenty seconds he was then cut down, and he revived as he was carried to fire to carry out the disembowelling and quartering. Before the executioner disembowelled him he said: “God forgive you. Go on, go on. Lay not this sin to their charge.” When the butchery was finished, the severed limbs of the martyr were displayed on the castle walls and his head impaled on Framwellgate Bridge.

St John Boste is still remembered as a powerful witness to our faith in our area. In 1994 celebrations were held to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his martyrdom, with events both at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Newhouse, the parish that includes the site of his capture, and St Godric’s, Durham (now part of Durham Martyrs parish), the parish that includes the site of his execution. An anniversary window was installed in the church at Newhouse.

PRAYER

Saint John Boste, pray for us  Give us strength to remain firm in our faith, to witness with joy and to be ever faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, professing him as Saviour and Lord. Amen