July 24 is the feast of St. Sharbel Makhluf (1828-1898), the Lebanese Maronite hermit and patron of Lebanon. Born Youssef Antoun Makhluf at Bekaa Kafra, in the mountains of Lebanon, he entered the Maronite monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouq in 1851 and the monastery of St. Maron at Annaya in 1853, taking the name Sharbel — the name of a 2nd-century martyr of Antioch. He lived as a hermit at the hermitage of Sts. Peter and Paul, near Annaya, for twenty-three years.
Sharbel died on Christmas Eve, 1898, and was buried at the monastery. The lights seen around his tomb after his death, and the healings reported there, led to his cause. He was beatified in 1965 and canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI — the first Maronite saint of the modern age. His body, exhumed in 1950 and 1976, was found incorrupt; it lies in a glass reliquary in the chapel of the monastery at Annaya.
Sharbel is the patron of Lebanon and of the Maronite Church. From Annaya, where he lived and is buried, to the Maronite monasteries of the Lebanese mountains, the July 24 feast is the feast of the hermit of the cedar forests whose tomb became a place of pilgrimage for Christians and Muslims alike.
