Today is the memorial of Saint Charbel Maklouf (+1898), an ascetic, chaste, humble example of monastic sanctity, who spent his life as a priest-hermit in a monastery in Lebanon, a hidden life, praying and sacrificing for the world and for souls. Saint Charbel’s life was completely devoted to God from his early youth, fruitful far beyond what our limited senses can tell us, the ‘hundred fold’ of which Christ speaks in today’s Gospel.
Charbel died on Christmas Eve, two years before the turn of a century that would see the world change dramatically. His body was found incorrupt months afterward, and miracles, especially at his tomb, have never stopped, for regardless of how much happens, good and bad, the Cross – the truth and love – of Christ stand forever.