St. Sharbel Monthly liturgy

The great Lebanese Maronite miracle-worker and healer is one of Lebanon’s and the world’s most beloved saints and the first Lebanese Maronite saint canonized by the Catholic Church.

Born in Bkaakafra, Lebanon, in 1828, Saint Sharbel became a monk and priest of the Lebanese Maronite Order and spent the final years of his life as a hermit at the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, where he lived a life of profound prayer, silence, humility, poverty, fasting, obedience, and deep devotion to the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. After he died in 1898, his tomb became a place of extraordinary devotion.

More than 125 years later, the Lebanese Maronite Sanctuary of St. Sharbel in Annaya, Lebanon, continues to record countless healings and miracles attributed to his intercession, especially healings from serious and medically incurable illnesses; the sanctuary emphasizes that these miracles are not St. Sharbel’s power, but God’s grace obtained through his intercession.

Among the most famous healings:

1- Sister Marie Abel Qamari, who recovered after years of severe illness.

2- Iskandar Obeid, whose sight was restored after an eye injury.

3- Mariam Assaf Awad, who was healed from serious cancer.

The Vatican formally investigated and recognized those 3 miracles during the process leading to his beatification and canonization. 

Pope Paul VI, who canonized St. Sharbel in 1977, described how both Christians and non-Christians came to him as a “physician of souls and bodies,” praising his extraordinary holiness, prayer, humility, and tender devotion to the Virgin Mary.

His reputation as a healer has continued long after his death: people from Lebanon and around the world still travel to Annaya to pray at his tomb, asking for healing of body and soul, and the monastery continues to register reported healings.

In 2025, Pope Leo XIV himself visited Annaya, prayed at St. Sharbel’s tomb, and spoke of how Sharbel continues to intercede for people before God, describing the grace flowing from his intercession as a “river of mercy.” 

Yet perhaps what makes St. Sharbel most extraordinary is that he never sought fame or miracles; he sought only God, and his entire mission ultimately points beyond himself to Jesus Christ, the true source of every healing and miracle.

The 22nd is important because of a specific healing associated with St. Sharbel, not because the number 22 has a special biblical or liturgical meaning. 

On January 22, 1993, the Lebanese woman Nohad El Shami, who had been partially paralyzed after a stroke and blocked carotid arteries, reported being healed after experiencing St. Sharbel in a vision. 

According to her testimony, St. Sharbel later told her to come to his hermitage in Annaya on the 22nd of every month, attend Liturgy, and give thanks to God. 

This became the origin of the monthly pilgrimage tradition: people began gathering at Annaya every 22nd to pray, attend Liturgy, give thanks, and ask for St. Sharbel's intercession for healing and other intentions. 

Today, thousands of pilgrims continue this tradition, and Pope Leo XIV specifically referred to the thousands who come from different countries on the 22nd of each month to renew their souls and bodies through prayer.