Posted on 09/25/2017 8:16:58 PM PDT by marshmallow
Family donates monument to Maronite hermit in thanksgiving for miraculous healing.
BEIRUT Lebanons beloved St. Charbel now towers high on a mountain in the land of the cedars in the form of the worlds largest statue of the humble hermit.
Located in Faraya, a touristic area popular for skiing 27 miles north of Beirut, the monumental statue is 88.6 feet tall, 30 feet wide and weighs nearly 60 tons.
Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai, patriarch of Maronite Catholics, consecrated the statue on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Sept. 14.
St. Charbel was born Joseph Antoun Makhlouf in the northern Lebanese village of Beqa-Kafra in 1828. The youngest of five children, his parents were simple Maronite farmers who were devout in their faith. The world held no interest for the future saint: His yearning was for holiness. Even as a young boy, he would go off alone to a grotto and pray.
At the age of 23, he quietly left his family, traveling more than a day on foot, until he reached Our Lady of Lebanon Monastery, where he began his novitiate. When he joined the order of Lebanese Maronite monks at the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, he chose the name Charbel, after a second-century martyr.
Charbel was beatified Dec. 5, 1965, and canonized Oct. 9, 1977 Lebanons first saint. Blessed Pope Paul VI remarked at the beatification ceremony: What a symbol of union between East and West! ... His whole existence was completely centered on the celebration of Mass, on silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and in the heroic practice of the virtues of obedience, poverty and chastity.
May he make us understand, in a world largely fascinated by wealth and comfort, the paramount value of poverty, penance and asceticism.....
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
It probably won’t be up for too long since it’s in a Muslim country.
Lots of Christians in Lebanon-——always have been.
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Plus that country has been at peace for the last few years now.
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