"Saints of Empowered Prayer: St. Sharbel Makhluf"

St. Sharbel Makhluf: St. Sharbel was born in 1828 in a small mountain village in north Lebanon. He entered the Maronite Monastery of Our Lady of Maifouk where he became a monk of the Maronite Rite and was ordained a priest in 1859. He was very devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He spent the last twenty-three years of his life, from 1875 until his death in 1898, as a hermit  devoted to contemplative and intercessory prayer. His reputation for holiness prompted people to seek him for a blessing and be remembered in his prayers. He followed a strict fast and was very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament. Despite temptations to wealth and comfort, Sharbel taught the value of poverty, self-sacrifice, and prayer by the life he lived. In his pictures his eyes are always down cast, and for the last decades of his life he practiced strict custody of his eyes, only raising them to look at the Tabernacle and the Eucharist. He possessed the gift of performing miracles even during his lifetime. He was canonized in 1977 by Pope Paul VI who said….."May he make us understand, in a world largely fascinated by wealth and comfort, the value of poverty, penance, and asceticism, to liberate the soul in its ascent to God." His feast day is July 24th.

Questions:

1)   St. Sharbel, was called to keep his eyes fixed on what really matters: the Divine, and the Blessed Sacrament: Where are my eyes most of the time?

2)   How is my intercessory prayer lived in my life each day?