Charbel Matar says a Lebanese saint saved his life when he was a toddler. Now, he’s amongst pilgrims of all faiths who go to Saint Charbel’s tomb, quickly to be graced by Pope Leo XIV.
“My household and I’ve nice religion in Saint Charbel and all the time go to him,” stated Matar, 69, on the Saint Maron Monastery in Annaya within the mountains of north Lebanon.
“I virtually died after I was 5. He carried out a miracle and saved me from loss of life, and saved me alive for 64 extra years,” stated Matar, whose dad and mom modified his identify from Roger to Charbel to honour the saint.
In Pope Leo’s first journey overseas since changing into head of the Catholic Church, the US-born pontiff will journey to Turkey and Lebanon, arriving in Beirut on November 30 and visiting the Annaya monastery the next day.
Saint Charbel has broad well-liked enchantment in Lebanon even past the Christian neighborhood, with many seeing him not solely as a miracle employee but in addition as a nationwide image.
Depictions of the saint with a white beard, his eyes lowered in prayer and sporting black garb, could be present in houses, automobiles and workplaces.
Randa Saliba, 60, known as Saint Charbel “a message of affection… and the face of Lebanon”.
The pope’s journey to his tomb was a should, she stated throughout a go to to the monastery along with her household.
The Catholic Church “cannot deny the miracles he performs and the folks whose souls he transforms. He is retaining the Christian message alive,” she added.
– ‘Not simply Christians’ –
Charbel was born Youssef Makhlouf in north Lebanon in 1828 and entered the Lebanese Maronite Order aged 23, later becoming a member of Annaya’s Saint Maron Monastery, the place he grew to become a hermit, main an ascetic life.
He was declared a saint in 1977.
Staff have been busy resurfacing the highway to the quiet monastery in preparation for the arrival of the pope whereas guests, together with ladies sporting the Muslim hijab head protecting, toured the positioning, lit candles or prayed faithfully to their saint.
Vice rector Tannous Nehme, excitedly awaiting the pope’s go to, estimated that the monastery drew round three million guests yearly.
“It isn’t simply Christians — loads of Muslims come to go to, loads of non-religious folks come to go to. They arrive from all over the place — Africa, Europe, Russia,” Nehme stated.
As incense lingered within the air, the stone monastery’s tranquillity was interrupted solely by the sound of restoration work on Saint Charbel’s tomb.
When it was opened in 1950 within the presence of clergy, officers and medical doctors, they discovered his physique well-preserved, greater than half a century after his loss of life in 1898.
Black-and-white footage of the occasion remains to be sometimes proven on Lebanese tv.
The monastery has recorded tens of 1000’s of people that have been cured by Saint Charbel, with 1000’s of others believed to have been healed exterior Lebanon.
One of many saint’s most well-known miracles is that of Nohad al-Shami from Lebanon’s Byblos area who was struck by an incurable sickness in 1993.
Shami stated Saint Charbel got here to her in a dream and healed her. She died this 12 months, aged 75.
– ‘Optimism’ for Lebanon –
Pope Leo’s go to to Lebanon follows these of Benedict XVI in 2012 and John Paul II in 1997.
His journey contains conferences with senior officers within the crisis-hit nation together with President Joseph Aoun, the Arab world’s solely Christian head of state.
Beneath multi-confessional Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, the publish of president is reserved for a Maronite Christian.
Lebanon’s Maronite church is in full communion with Rome.
“The pope’s go to is essential for Lebanon. It brings goodness and blessings… and optimism for the Lebanese folks,” stated Claude Issa, 56, a mom of three.
Lebanon has been no stranger to calamity lately.
A ceasefire in November 2024 was supposed to finish greater than a 12 months of hostilities between Israel and militant group Hezbollah through which some 4,000 folks had been killed in Lebanon.
However Israel has saved up lethal strikes regardless of the truce, and lots of concern a return to expanded Israeli raids.
Earlier than the conflict, Lebanon was reeling from an financial collapse that started in 2019, and a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port the next 12 months that killed greater than 220 folks and injured some 6,500.
The pope will maintain a silent prayer on the web site of the explosion, for which no person has but been held accountable.
“The pope’s go to will revitalise folks and make them really feel there’s nonetheless hope in Lebanon,” Issa stated.