BEING A SON of this land of light and sun, like the cedar of Lebanon, Saint Charbel Makhlouf was simple and tenacious and rose to the summits of Christian perfection.

His life was a living refutation of modern pride and materialism and eloquently demonstrates that holiness is still very much of our times. Today as yesterday, God's almighty grace remains effective and active for whoever wants to correspond, faithfully to it.

Catholicism finds its complete résumé in the Cross. Day after day, Father Charbel drew life, strength and joy from this mystery renewed upon the altar, along with a motive for his own daily immolation.

The entire life of this Eucharistic soul was a preparation and a thanksgiving for the Sacrament of love. He looked for Jesus and found Him, and this seeking out and, encounter resulted in a perfect identification between his soul and Jesus.

The story of Father Charbel, as with the lives of all the Saints, is the most exciting adventure that exists, the only adventure that is worth dedicating one's whole life to-----to seek out God, to unite oneself to Him by forgetting oneself. This adventure is the beginning of Heaven on earth.

Many people show profound interest in the miracles and prodigies surrounding Father Charbel after his life. There is nothing common about a cadaver which conserves itself perfectly intact for more than seventy years and oozes of sweat and blood! Is this really true? Read and see! And then again, so many miracles are attributed to him . . . People ask how many he has performed? Multitudes, indeed.

But rare are those who preoccupy themselves with the essential-----to know the virtues of the holy monk. What was his spirit of humility, obedience, charity, and his union with God? Very few people think of asking that, and yet the grandest aspect of this priest is his interior life.

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