We
celebrate the feast day of a Lebanese priest today named St Charbel
Makhluf. He
was born in a small village in Lebanon in 1828 to a very humble family. His father, a mule driver, died when he
was 3, so he was raised by an uncle. He
entered the Monastery of St Maron in Lebanon and was ordained a priest. For the last 23 years of his life, he
lived as a hermit in the desert where he practiced a life of strict fasting and
of strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
People sought him out for his prayers due to his reputation for
holiness.
The
life of a hermit is austere and difficult, and it might be difficult for the
average person to see God’s love and mercy in such austerity and
discipline. Yet,
God calls us all in different ways, and when we follow that call and choose
that life that is meant for us, it is a liberating and life-giving
experience. Finding where God’s love and
mercy exist in our lives is one of the main challenges we have as followers of
Christ.
As we
think about St Charbel today, we recognize how we live in an age when the
motives behind our faith are questioned by many in society, as many people
can’t believe that we are sincere and grounded in what we believe. Jesus
tells us in today Gospel from Matthew: Blessed are your eyes because they see,
blessed are your ears because they hear. Being
able to believe in our modern world is a grace. Yes,
indeed our faith is a grace; our faith would not exist without the way that God
and the Holy Spirit interact in our lives. If we
look at the faith of St Charbel, our faith is in the same tradition of theirs,
our faith finds strength in the prayers of the community of saints. Just
as St Charbel accepted God’s calling for him, may we also see & hear the
way God is calling us, and may we follow that plan in faith.
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