St. Charbel

Saint Charbel

Confessor

Youssef Makhlouf was born in the year of Our Lord 1828, the son of a mule driver in Lebanon. His father died when he was young, and he was raised by an uncle who was constantly irritated by the young boy’s piety. Youssef persevered in his faith nevertheless, inspired by books like The Imitation of Christ. At the age of twenty-three he quietly left home and joined a monastery of the Lebanese Maronite Order, or Baladites. He took the name Charbel, and was ordained several years after making his vows, though it is not common in the East for monks to also be priests. Charbel was an exemplary monk, but he deeply desired to imitate the great Desert Fathers, and after fifteen years he became a hermit at a small chapel under the monastery’s jurisdiction. There Charbel lived the rest of his life in strict asceticism. He worked many miracles, and was known to levitate while praying. After over twenty years as a hermit, Charbel was struck by paralysis and passed away soon after, in the year of Our Lord 1898. His body remained incorrupt for decades, and many miracles have occurred at his tomb.

Traditional Roman Martyrology for July 24th

THE vigil of St. James, apostle.

At Tyro, in Tuscany, on lake Bolsena, St. Christina, virgin and martyr. Believing in Christ, and breaking up her father’s gold and silver idols to give them to the poor, she was cruelly scourged by his command, subjected to other most severe torments, and thrown with a heavy stone into the lake, from which she was drawn out by an angel. Then under another judge, who succeeded her father, she bore courageously still more bitter tortures. Finally, after she had been shut up by the governor Julian in a burning furnace for five days without any injury, and after being cured of the sting of serpents, she ended her martyrdom by having her tongue cut out, and being pierced with arrows.

At Rome, on the Tiburtine road, St. Vincent, martyr.

At Amiterno, in Abruzzo, the martyrdom of eighty-three holy soldiers.

At Merida, in Spain, St. Victor, a military man, who, with his two brothers, Stercatius and Antinogenes, by various torments consummated his martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian.

In Lycia, the holy martyrs Niceta and Aquilina, who were converted to Christ by the preaching of the blessed martyr Christopher, and gained the palm of martyrdom by being decapitated.

Also, the holy martyrs Meneus and Capito.

At Sens, St. Ursicinus, bishop and confessor.

℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.

℟. Thanks be to God.