Saint Charbel / مار شربل

On my way home tonight from tai chi class in Beirut, I noticed this small shrine with a candle dedicated to Saint Charbel inside. A Maronite monk and priest, St. Charbel (d. 1898) spent 23 years of his life as a solitary hermit in Lebanon. In describing this saint, Pope Paul VI (who presided over St. Charbel’s beatification), said: “A hermit of Mount Lebanon is enrolled in the number of the blessed…a new eminent member of monastic sanctity has by his example and his intercession enriched the entire Christian people…may he make us understand, in a world largely fascinated by wealth and comfort, the paramount value of poverty, penance and asceticism, to liberate the soul in its ascent to God.”