I have been listening to a lot of talks and programmes from the late Fr Benedict Groeshel recently. Some of you may not have heard of him but he was a wonderfully wise and saintly priest from New Jersey in the USA. There are loads of videos of his on Tube. But one thing he often mentions is concerning the saints he had met in his life and some stories of their goings on. But one thing he mentions is that we tend to home in on the well known saints. But that there are many, many saints we will never know about who live and die unknown. But sometimes ,as in the case of St Charbel God reaches down from heaven , points His Great Big finger at them and forces us to know. So it was with St Charbel . If it were not for the massive supernatural circumstances that happened after his death we might never have know. The light round his grave, the constant oil seeping from his body, but perhaps nowadays the most incredible constant miracles. https://aleteia.org/2025/07/24/the-only-photograph-of-st-charbel-was-a-miracle/ The only photograph of St. Charbel was a miracle © Antoine Mekary | ALETEIA Philip Kosloski - published on 07/24/25 According to local monks, St. Charbel was never photographed during his life, but miraculously appeared in a photo taken at his tomb. St. Charbel lived in the 19th century in Lebanon. He was attracted to the hermit’s life of the desert and eventually entered the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya. After many years, Charbel felt God calling him again to become a hermit and was granted permission to live the rest of his life at a hermitage set on a hill near the monastery. He died in 1898 and was reportedly never photographed during his lifetime. Even if he was photographed, no photograph exists that is from the time period. However, there does exist a mysterious photograph of him that was later used for most of his official portraits. The story behind the photograph Fr. George Webby, a Maronite priest from Pennsylvania, went on a pilgrimage to St. Charbel's tomb on May 8, 1950, St. Charbel's birthday, with a group of fellow Maronite monks. They took a picture outside the monastery walls and after the picture was developed, they noticed an unknown figure in front of everyone. The figure in the photo was not part of their group and so they asked the monks at the monastery if they knew who it was. A few older monks knew immediately who it was: St. Charbel. Public Domain These monks had known St. Charbel during their lifetime and could recognize him. What's fascinating is that most modern-day portraits of St. Charbel are based on this miraculous image. There is another case of a mysterious photo: a photograph taken in 2016 that reportedly shows St. Charbel blessing a woman who had cancer. She had come to his tomb to pray for healing, but the monastery was shut. So she asked an elderly monk to bless her and only found out later that no monk lived at the monastery with that description. She took it as a sign that St. Charbel himself had blessed her. When she returned, it was discovered that her cancer was gone. It is a reminder of how St. Charbel remains a powerful heavenly intercessor and miracles continue to happen many years after his death.
From Totus Tuus page: "Among the healing miracles attributed to Saint Charbel Makhlouf, the 1993 healing of Nohad El Shami is the most famous and thoroughly documented. Nohad El Shami, a 55-year-old Lebanese woman, suffered from partial paralysis caused by severe blockage of the carotid arteries. Her condition left her unable to move normally, and doctors considered surgery too risky. After praying a novena to St. Charbel, she dreamed that the saint, accompanied by another monk (widely believed to be Saint Maron), operated on her neck. When she awoke on January 22, 1993, she was completely healed. She could walk, speak, and move normally again. She also found two fresh, surgical-like scars on her neck that remained visible for years. Following an investigation by Church authorities and medical experts, the healing was recognized as extraordinary. St. Charbel's monastery asked Nohad to return regularly as a witness to God's grace through the saint's intercession. Her testimony has inspired countless pilgrims, and the event remains one of the best-known healing miracles associated with St. Charbel."
