Today December 24

Today is the feast of St. Sharbel Maklouf (also spelled Charbel) (1828 - 1898). He is called the "prophet of silence" because he lived the quiet life of a Marionite monk all his adult life, and though he wasn't a "Someone" nor did "great things," he was a great man. He was not afraid to, as Caryll Houselander puts it, "spend his life in small coin down to the last penny." He was a good student; he ran away to the monastery when he was 23; he did his novitiate in one monastery and took his solemn vows in another at age 25. He was ordained a priest when he was 30. He did the lowliest tasks and often fasted. He slept on the hard ground and spent the morning in preparation and prayer, said Mass at noon, and spent the afternoon in thanksgiving. He was struck with paralysis during the Elevation at Mass and died 8 days later, on Christmas Eve, 1898.

A spectral light emanated from his grave where he had been buried simply, no embalming, no coffin. Because of the interest and enthusiasm of the people, 4 months later the monks exhumed his body, which was found to be perfectly incorrupt: undecomposed, pliable and fragrant. It exuded a lovely oil that also smelled nice. The monks put his body inside the church in a wooden coffin and opened it every so often. In 1927 it underwent a thorough examination and again in 1950. He was canonized in 1965 (right at the end of Vatican II) and then in 1976 when the coffin was opened, it was nothing but a skeleton. But it had been a powerful sign for a long time. The Marionite monks of Lebanon counted all the miracles that attended his gravesite and they numbered over 1200. St. Sharbel, pray for us.