Saint Charbel (Joseph) Makhlouf Priest Feast: July 24 - Optional Memorial Beqaa Kafra, Lebanon, 1828 – Annaya, Lebanon, December 24, 1898 Youssef Antoun (in Italian, Giuseppe Antonio) Makhlouf was born in the village of Beqaa Kafra, Lebanon, in 1828, probably on May 8. In 1851, he left home to enter the Lebanese Maronite Order at the monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouq in the Byblos region. In November of that year, he took the religious habit and changed his name to Brother Charbel. The following year, he moved to the monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, on the mountain of Byblos, where he took solemn vows on November 1, 1853. Brother Charbel was later sent to the monastery of Kfifan where he completed his theological studies. After his ordination to the priesthood, Father Charbel returned to Annaya and, six years later, was allowed to become a hermit in the hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul, not far from the monastery. He lived there for another twenty-three years, fasting, praying and working in the fields around the hermitage. On December 16, 1898, while celebrating Mass, he was struck by apoplexy: he died after eight days of agony, on December 24. He was both beatified and canonized by Pope Saint Paul VI, on December 5, 1965 and October 9, 1977, respectively. His mortal remains are venerated in the monastery of Saint Maron in Annaya, in an urn of cedar wood. Roman Martyrology: Saint Charbel (Joseph) Makhluf, priest of the Lebanese Maronite Order, who, seeking a life of austere solitude and a higher ., withdrew from the monastery of Annaya in Lebanon to a hermitage, where he served God day and night in the utmost sobriety of life with fasting and prayer, arriving on December 24 to rest in the Lord. (December 24: At Annaya in Lebanon, anniversary of the death of Saint Charbel (Joseph) Makhluf, whose memory is ce