Early Life and Vocation
Saint Sharbel Makhluf was born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf in the village of Beqaa Kafra, Lebanon, in 1828, probably on 8 May, to a farming family. His father died when he was three, and his mother remarried a pious man who later became a priest. At the age of ten he began working as a shepherd, spending his free time in prayer in a cave that later became known as the grotto of the Saint. Inspired by two hermit uncles, he heard a clear call from the Lord at the age of twenty-three and left home abruptly in 1851 to enter the Monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouq, where he became a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order and received the name Charbel.
Monastic Formation and Priesthood
After entering the monastery he studied theology diligently and was ordained priest in 1859. He performed manual labor, cared for the poor and sick, and carried out the tasks assigned to him, though he always preferred prayer and contemplation. For sixteen years after his profession he lived the communal monastic life at the Monastery of Saint Maron of Annaya, following the rule of the Lebanese Maronite Order.
Eremitical Solitude at Annaya
In 1875 he entered the stricter eremitical rule of the Order, which allowed communities of at most three monks. He spent the next twenty-three years in solitude at the hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul dependent on Annaya. His days were marked by extreme poverty, manual labor, fasting, penance, silence, and near-constant prayer, often with arms outstretched in a very poor cell. He left the hermitage only to celebrate Mass or when expressly ordered by his superiors.
Death and Immediate Signs
On Christmas Eve 1898, while celebrating Mass, he fell ill at the elevation and died after an eight-day agony on 24 December. Throughout his final illness he continued to observe the rule strictly. Within months of his death the tomb began to show supernatural lights at night. When it was opened the body was found incorrupt, with a living-like temperature, and on later examinations it exuded a mixture of blood and water. During the 1950 examination his face was imprinted on a cloth and many instantaneous healings occurred among those present.
Recognition by the Church
Saint Sharbel was beatified by Pope Paul VI on 5 December 1965 at the close of the Second Vatican Council. He was canonized by the same pope on 9 October 1977 in Saint Peter's Basilica. His feast is observed on 24 July in the Latin Church.
Imitemur hodie sanctitatem huius Vitae, et Sancti Sarbelii Makhluf, presbyteri intercedat pro nobis.
