Saturday, July 24, 16th Week in Ordinary Time
ST. CHARBEL MAKHLOUF (Lebanon, 1828-1898), Maronite Monk and Hermit
Born Youssef Makhlouf to a mule driver and his wife, the future saint joined the monastery of St. Maron at age 23, taking his monastic name from a second-century Lebanese saint. He was ordained a priest in 1859 and quickly gained fame for his spirituality and example. He was particularly devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, often spending hours in adoration. He ministered the sacraments to the surrounding villages despite the difficult terrain and climate of the area (more than 4500 feet above sea level). In 1875, he decided to be a hermit, following the example of St. Maron (who lived in the 5th century) and remained a hermit for 23 years until his death. Miraculously, he survived the severe winters without warm clothing or heating for his habitation. There was heavy snowfall on the day he died, Christmas Eve, but the following day, as his fellow monks prepared to bury him at the monastery, the storm stopped, enabling the villagers to attend his funeral. His tomb quickly became a place for pilgrimage and miraculous cures. These intensified after his body was exhumed in 1950 preparatory to his beatification and found to be intact. Pius XI had proposed his beatification in 1935. Paul VI beatified him in 1966 at the closing of the Second Vatican Council, and canonized him 10 years later.
Readings for today's Mass: www.usccb.org/nab/readings/072410.shtml
OR today.
'The Pope's working vacation in Castel Gandolfo'
Two weeks since he began his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican released a short video and still photographs of the Pope. Other Page 1 stories: A commentary on the stress tests to which 91 European banks will be subjected by the European Union; the International Court at the Hague upholds the independence uniltarally proclaimed by Kosovo in 2008 but Serbia continues to contest it; Venezuela's President Chavez breaks off diplomatic relations with neighboring Colombia, claiming graphic documentation was falsified to show Venezuela has been harboring Colombian guerrillas in a border province; China has stopped the oil leak from a pipeline that exploded in the northeast port city of Dalian but now has to clean up 450 square kilometers of oil slick on the Yellow Sea.
The Pope has named three new members to the Congregation for the Causes of Sainthood:
- Mons. Fortunato Baldelli, Major Penitentiary
- Mons. Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Segnatura
- Mons. Antoni Stankiewicz, Dean of the Roman Rota.
The Vatican also released the papal letter naming Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops,
as his personal representative to the fourth centenary celebrations in Chapel Island, Nova Scotia, Canada on August 1,
of the baptism of Great Chief Mambertou of the Miqmaq Indians