St Sharbel Makhlouf was a Maronite monk and priest from Lebanon who became a hermit and obtained a reputation for holiness. He was the only person to be beatified by Pope St Paul VI at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and he was canonised by the same pope in 1977.
Yousef Antoun Makhlouf was born on May 8, 1828, in the village of Bkaakafra in the north of the country.
One of five children raised in a devout Christian family he was inspired from an early age by the ascetic lifestyles of Maronite hermits of the monastery of St Anthony-Kozhaya and he recognised a similar vocation in himself.
Even as a boy, working as a shepherd tending to the family’s small flock, he would often spend many hours meditating at a grotto dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, prompting fellow villagers to refer to him as the “saint”.
He chose the name Sharbel when he joined the Maronites in 1851. He began his studies of philosophy and theology at the Monastery of Ss Cyprian and Justina in Kfifan, in the Batroun district of Lebanon, to prepare himself for receiving Holy Orders. His professors included St Nimatullah Kassab, who was canonised by Pope St John Paul II in 2004.
In 1853, St Sharbel took his vows at the monastery of St Maron in the Mount Lebanon village of Annaya, near Beirut, and in July 1859 he was ordained priest in Bkerke.
After 16 years of living in community at Annaya, he requested to live as a hermit and in 1875 he entered the affiliated hermitage of Ss Peter and Paul. He dedicated himself to a solitary life of prayer and manual labour for the following 23 years until he died of a stroke on Christmas Eve 1898.
It was reported that some months after his death a light shone from his tomb. It was opened and his body was found to be incorrupt, causing many people throughout the region to flock to his tomb to pray for his intercession. A great number of healing miracles have since been attributed to the saint, including those necessary for his canonisation, and that of Nohad El Shami, a 55-year-old woman healed from a partial paralysis after she saw St Sharbel together with another Maronite monk in a dream.
Many Lebanese Christians today ask for prayer cloths to be blessed before they are placed over the sick and prayers to God are offered for their healing through the intercession of St Sharbel.