Welcome to the forum, Ray, from Las Vegas, Nevada. Ray sent me this message on the contact form how do I post this? Several weeks ago while two spanish priests were given mass at St. Sharbel Maronite Catholic Church, here in Las Vegas, the statue of St. Sharbel started to "bleed oil" from the head, chest and palms of the hand. For protection the Knights of Columbus have been guarding the statute. If your in Las Vegas, you are invited to come see for yourself and form your own opinion. Personally, I went out and saw the oil coming out of the statute. St. Sharbel has more than 300+ miracles attributed to him.
This certainly looks true, the local Bsihop held the statue in his hands while this happened and saw it with his own eyes. Here is a bio of St Charbel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charbel_Makhluf
Saint Charbel's Life Vocation Saint Charbel is the first Confessor of the Eastern Church raised to the glory of the altars in modern times. He was born on May 8, 1828 in the little village of Biqa-Kafra in the high mountains of Northern Lebanon from poor, but respectable and devout parents. He was the last of five children; two brothers and two sisters were born before him into that blessed family. When he was baptized, he was given the name of Joseph. He learned a profound and sound piety from his parents and cultivated these seeds of sanctity with generous care, with continuous prayer and, since his adolescence, with a life inspired by detachment and denial of worldly vanities, always seeking interior and exterior solitude. At the age of twenty-three he left his parent’s house to go as a novice to the Monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouk at the North of Jebeil. Some time later he was transferred from the Monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouk to the Monastery of St-Maroun at Annaya of the Lebanese Maronite Order, where in 1853, after the two prescribed years of novitiate, he pronounced the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, choosing the name of Charbel who was an old Oriental martyr. Humility, poverty and Chastity His mother and other members of his family, having found his shelter, reached him and begged him to go back home, but it was useless, because he refused firmly and persisted his vocation. He renounced the pleasure of seeing his home, his relations and even his mother for ever, having made up his mind to die to the world and to cut off all ties with it in order to devote himself completely to God, without any reserve. After pronouncing his solemn monastic vows, the St- Charbel was sent by his superiors to the Monastery of Kfifan to finish his religious studies. He was lucky to find there two professors who were well known in the Maronite Order for their virtues and their theological and ascetical learning, namely the R.F.Nimatallah Al-Kafri and the R.F.Nimatallah Kassab Al-Hardini, whose cause of Beatification has already been placed before the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Following the teaching and the example of these two outstanding Fathers, Blessed Charbel laid to heart the seeds of virtue and monastic perfection. St-Charbel was ordained priest in 1859 and then went back again to the Monastery of St-Maroun in Annaya. There he performed all his holy services in a very edifying way, while carrying on every kind of manual work. He ac- accomplished all the duties of monastic life with deep humility; perfect obedience, strict poverty and heroic chastity that made him resemble an angel. Hermitage St-Charbel had already spent in the Monastery of St-Maroun sixteen years of severe ascetic life, always in prayer, mortification and self-denial, a life which he had chosen to be able to advance quickly on the way to God, when he was allowed in 1875 by his superiors to retire to the hermitage of St-Peter and St-Paul in Annaya, a property of the Monastery of St-Maroun, one mile from the same. The hermit does not live independently in the solitude of his hermitage, but he remains at the disposal of his superiors, following a very severe and strict discipline. Thus, in the Eastern Church, ermitic life is a true state of religious life and belongs to the Constitutions of the Lebanese Maronite Order founded in Lebanon in 1695 and approved by Pope Clement XII in 1732. St-Charbel chose this solitude not to live according to his own mind, but to practice virtue and his religious vows in a heroic way. Contemplation, manual work, fasting, continuous prayer, short rest on a hard couch, hair shirt… all these ascetic practices are the programmed of his daily life. In such a way, for twenty-three years, from 1875 when he entered the hermitage to 1898 when he died, Blessed Charbel dedicated himself with all his strength to a solitary life of perfection, penance, and mortification.
Greetings, Ray! That's certainly making your entry with a big splash! Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
