Raymond Nader Talk at St. Louis Gonzaga Church, Utica, NY, 2026
Saint Sharbel was going to be a saint when he was one year old, three years old to be precise because he was gifted the gift of prayers. He was always praying. He was attending mass every day, going to church, and every time when they were losing him in his village, they were finding him in a cave praying in front of the picture of our Holy Mother Mary with some incenses that he was stealing from the church. So, he was a child of prayer, and he grew up to become a man of prayer. So, he grew up in his village.
As I said, some of his brothers and sisters, villagers, some of them were mocking him, calling him a saint, because he was weird. Some others, they were considering him as a real saint. So, at the age of 23, he disappeared from this village after he was praying in the forest of the Cedars of God. In the bible, it's written that God planted the cedars of Lebanon—that's why this forest today is called the “Cedars of God.” So, one day, St. Sharbel was praying there, and something happened to him, so he left everything. He left his village without telling anyone, and he went to the monastery to join the Lebanese order of Maronites. So, he went to the monastery, and he left the monastery because some things there didn't please him, so he went to the seminary of the monks in Kfifan. He studied theology for 6-7 years, and then he was assigned to Annaya, the monastery of St. Maron, where his body is there now; it's becoming the shrine of St. Sharbel. So, he lived 16 years in the monastery, and then the last 23 years of his life, he was a hermit at the hermitage of Annaya.
You know, the life of the hermit is extremely tough. So, he was living almost in solitude, always praying, working in the fields, planting, harvesting. He was not allowed to sleep more than three hours every 24 hours, and he was pleased to do this. He was fond of prayers. He was allowed only to eat a piece of bread, a few vegetables during the day once. He was not allowed to light any fire during wintertime even though the hermitage in winter was totally covered with snow. So, he was living on the floor. He was putting his head on a pillow—it was a piece of wood and without a cover. So, you know it's tough. He was not allowed to eat anything which was sweet. So, he was planting, collecting, harvesting grapes, but he never tasted any grapes. It needs a very strong will to live as a hermit.
So, during his lifetime, he was performing a lot of miracles. So, they were bringing him a lot of sick people; he was healing them. He was a friend of nature; he was talking to the foxes, talking to the snakes, to the birds. He spelled away the locusts when they came to invade Lebanon and eat all the grains. So, he was someone very special. He had a mysterious life. None of the human beings have ever seen his face. He was always looking downward. He never lifted up his eyes to look at any face or at anyone. That's why they were considering him as naive or simple because he was always connected to heaven. They felt that he has always distracted from this world.
So, on the eve of 1898 at the age of 70, the eve of Christmas, he died in the hermitage, and they brought his body down to the monastery. They put him in the church. The monks were surrounded and praying. So, they saw a light coming out from the tabernacle, coming to the tomb of St. Sharbel, illuminating his head. So, the second day they had the funeral. They put him in the tomb close to the church, and in the evening some mysterious light started coming up, shining from the tomb of St. Sharbel. So, this light kept shining everywhere, and at that period, we were under the occupation of the Turkish army. So, some of the Turkish soldiers, they came to the monastery to check about the source of this strange light. So, they searched the monastery, and they couldn't find anything, and they were saying there was nothing visible by that time, so the light should be coming from some type of fire. So, they didn't find anything.
After a few months—it was in the month of May as well—so, they decided to open the door to see what is the source of the light inside. So, they opened the door and they took out the body of St. Sharbel. He was like sleeping. He was not corrupted. He was flexing. His clothes all were rotten and corrupted. So, they changed his clothes. They put him in a casket in the monastery. After a while, they noticed that he was sweating. So, they were seeing droplets of sweat on his forehead, on his hands, on his feet, and the casket started being filled with this mixture of blood and sweat. So, you know, the monks were not used to this type of thing. They started changing his clothes almost every day, and then they got tired from changing his clothes. They didn't have washing machines, so you have to wash his clothes by their hands. They were so busy working. They thought that they were wasting their time always washing the clothes of St. Sharbel, who was always sweating. So, they decided to stop him from sweating.
So, the first thing they did, they put his body on the rooftop, under the sun, under the summer sun, for three, four months, thinking that it will dry out. So, he didn't dry out; he was always sweating, so they decided to do something else. So, they went to plan B, which was terrific. They decided to cut his body and take everything out because they thought that he was filled with food—that's why he was oozing to the outside. So, they took out his lungs, stomach, his intestines; they emptied his body, and he kept sweating. So, the other plan was to put his body into choke. So, they put him in a kind of choke to drain on. So, they burned his skin. He became black, but he kept sweating. So, they decided to put him in a tunnel, a small tunnel, a small cave, close to the church, and they built a wall. So, they came and got rid of this body, and then after a few days, they saw that this liquid was coming out from among the stones of the wall. So, they dismounted the wall again; they took out this body, and by that time, the Patriarch knew about what the monks are doing to the body of St. Sharbel. He was upset, so he ordered them to put him back in the tomb, and he said that anyone who will open the tomb or touch the body of St. Sharbel will be excommunicated. So, he slept there for 52 years, from 1898 to 1950.
In 1950—you know, St. Sharbel has a sense of humor—so he appeared to the superior of the monastery, his name was Boutros, like our beloved friend. So, he appeared to him at night, and he said to him, “Father Boutros, go out and open my tomb.” So, Father Boutros was afraid. He was not afraid of St. Sharbel; he was afraid of the patriarch because he would be excommunicated if he opened the tomb, and this story, I heard it from Fr. Boutros himself before he died 20 years ago. So, he said to me that St. Sharbel, when he appeared to him, he was thinking about what will happen if I go out and open his tomb. So, he disregarded St. Sharbel and went back to sleep. So, the second night St. Sharbel appeared to him, and he said the same thing: “Fr. Boutros, go out and open my tomb.” And for the second time, Father Boutros disregarded the request of St. Sharbel. So, the third night, St. Sharbel appeared to him again, and he said that he was very serious. So, he said to him, “Father Boutros, I'm telling you, go out and open my door.” So, this time, Father Boutros was afraid of St. Sharbel for that year. So, he went out, he opened the tomb of St. Sharbel, he found his body floating on blood in his casket. So, he took his body, carried his body on his shoulders. They took him inside and put him in a new casket. He changed his clothes, and he was always sweating this liquid, which was a mixture of blood and sweat, till the year 1965.
In the year 1965, he was declared blessed. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI, and at that moment, he stopped sweating, and then his flesh evaporated, and he was still just a skeleton with his skin. In the year 1977, he was canonized, declared a Saint by Pope Paul VI as well. And in the year 1950, when this tomb was opened, thousands of miracles started happening. So many people they went to visit—they were crippled; they came back without their sticks, many people were blind, so they started to see, many deaf people started hearing, and thousands of miracles started happening, and it’s still ongoing until this day. You know what you've heard about the miracles of St. Sharbel? The registered miracles now in the monastery of St. Sharbel’s shrine are around 30,000 registered miracles, and I'm sure that there are hundreds of thousands around the world which are not registered. So, St. Sharbel is roaming the world, interfering, intervening in the life of people, healing some sick people, changing the life of many people, converting other people.
So, he is moving in Lebanon, and we in Lebanon, we feel that St. Sharbel is living with us, among us in our household. So, every one of us is considering that St. Sharbel is one member of the family. We always feel it; we always feel that he is always alive among us. So, in the year 1977, after his canonization, I started going out to Annaya with my parents to visit and to pray, like all the companions because every Lebanese has at least to go up to Annaya once or twice a year.
So, I got to know St. Sharbel, and I was like fascinated by his life, by the mystery of his life, because he was always silent and in solitude, always connected to heaven. It's like we are now connected to the internet network, and we panic when we lose our connection. So, St. Sharbel was always connected to heaven and disconnected from this world, and then I was asking where to get this power to go around the world and to reach people, to interfere with their lives and change their lives because I was then asking a lot of questions about our faith.
So, because I was born in a Maronite family in Beirut, my grandfather was a priest. So, like all the Maronite families by that time, we were very well known that you are the prayerful people. The Maronites are always praying, and we had a tradition. All the families were gathering in the evening all together to pray—the grandparents, the parents, the grandchildren, their children. All the families, during that time I'm talking, the Maronite families were gathering to pray together and especially to venerate our Holy Mother Mary because we are very devoted to her. And I loved it. I loved a lot the prayers at home because I was at ease, feeling comfortable praying, singing, chanting with my parents and my grandparents and my brothers.
What I didn't like to do on Sundays was [go to] the church. I didn't like the Mass. I think that, like, all the kids didn't like the Mass because they have to sit still without moving, without talking, without doing anything for one hour, watching the priest doing things that they don't understand, and I had an additional problem that the priest was my grandfather. He was living with us at home. I had to go to the church on Sundays to watch my grandfather celebrating the Mass. It was so annoying, but what was more annoying and shocking to me was the Mass by itself because I spent the whole time at the Mass waiting for the last sentence of my grandfather, which was “go in peace.” So, when he said, “go in peace,” I was like relieved—okay, we’re done now—but the problem with me was just before this when the people would stand in line like we did today to receive this piece of bread, this host in their moth.
For you, it’s something very normal; you don't ask questions about it, but for me it was a scandal because I was the one who was preparing those hosts for my grandfather because during that time, we baked them at home those days. At that time, we spent Saturday night—I used to spend it with my grandmother preparing the hosts for my grandfather. For me, it was a very pleasant time because I did it. I used to make hundreds of them—500, 600 pieces. I used to eat half of them because I loved the hosts, and I’d leave the rest for my grandfather for this celebration, and I was, like, looking at the people at the end of the mass standing in line so that everyone will have one and cold—because hot is much more delicious—so I was thinking maybe I can teach people how to make them at home. They can eat as much as they can and hot and delicious instead of coming to the church to sit for one hour waiting for them to have only this one piece in their mouth.
So, for me, all this mystery—it was something like an issue that I have to resolve. So, I was asking my grandfather about his job. What is he doing in the church? What exactly is he doing? What will happen to this host?
So, my grandfather was a silent man. He spoke only maybe three or four words a year, and he didn't like to explain it out to me. So, after my insistence, he revealed to me a secret as a priest, and he said to me that he's a priest, and the job of the priest is to pray to God, and God will descend from heaven. He will reside in these hosts, and people will eat, and because God is love, in this way, love will enter their hearts, and they will start loving each other. And he said to me, “when you grow up, you will understand.”
So, I put everything in my mind, and I started growing up, and I grew up really fast. So, I was going to school, playing, like all the children, but always thinking about this mystery of my grandfather. How can God, the creator of the universe, just respond to the call of my grandfather, come down from heaven, reside in this host that people can eat. So, I believed my grandfather was not lying to me, but I couldn't understand how this can happen. So, I went reading books, making researches, thinking, and my first communion, I received my first Bible. It was an illustrated Bible, and I read it all, and I was fascinated by Jesus Christ. I loved him a lot. He’s very special. So, I kept reading the Bible already. So, I was always thinking about this mystery of the incarnation, about Jesus, about God, always thinking about God, looking at the stars, asking why there are stars in the sky. So, I was always thinking about creation. I wanted to know more about God—why we cannot see him, talk to him. What is this mystery? What is the mechanism that He invented to come down in these pieces of bread?
So, I had a very beautiful childhood. I was so happy, as I said, playing, studying, reading, and was extremely smart. I was always the first rank in the school. If you look at the palmarès, you'll see my picture as an honored student. So, everything was going great until 1975.
In 1975, the war burst in Lebanon and startled the world. It was a terrible war between the Christians and the Muslims, a civil war. My home was on the borderline between the two parts, between the Christian area and the Muslim area. So, I joined the Christian forces to defend our homes, churches, schools, to do what I had. And I joined the Christian forces; I was only 13 years old. I was like a child. I was playing guitar by then, so I left my guitar, I took the machine gun and started fighting, and for a child of 13 years, to fight is something very, very hard, very tough. So, my question now changed. I had serious questions in my head because I was losing every day a lot of my friends. They were killed, injured, and life became extremely serious, and I started asking a lot of questions about life.
Okay, I thought about God, the beautiful God that can descend from heaven, we can eat Him. But what is the meaning of life? Why did God create us? And I was always asking, what are we doing on this planet? And the main question was because I was living among people who were dying every day, losing a lot of thousands of my friends during the war that lasted 15 years. So, I was asking, why do we die? Why did God create us if at the end we will die, we will come back to dust? And I started doubting the love of God. I thought, “if God is love, He is loving us, how can He permit that you die and come back to dust?” You know, when you create something, you get in love with it, you get attached to it, you don't want to lose it. Can you imagine painting a beautiful painting then destroying it? Or this sculptor making a beautiful statue and then destroying it? So, I was thinking, why did God create us since at the end we will become dust again?
So, even though I was confused, I was always praying, reading the Bible, fighting, and studying. So, those are the three things that I was doing for a long time, thinking that I will meet God in a way. So, even by science—I was going very deep in science; I studied at school, researches, and then after that I went to [the] engineering school of the Jesuit University of Beirut. I specialized in electromechanical engineering, and then I received a scholarship to go to the UK, and I specialized in nuclear engineering in the UK, and I was always having a lot of researches about the universe, the planets, the galaxies, and life. And at the same time, I was, as I said, fighting and reading the Bible almost every night. I was thinking that either God will reveal himself through prayers or I will discover God through silence or I will get killed in war and then I will see him face to face [inaudible].
And at that time, when St. Sharbel appeared in 1977, after a few years, I started going up to Annaya almost every night to pray in his hermitage because I wanted to get these questions, to get their answers. I knew, I was believing—I still believe—that St. Sharbel is always going and coming to the other world. He's appearing in this world and then coming back to where he is, and I thought that maybe he can give me some hints, some clues about what's happening on the other side of life. So, I started going up almost every night to Annaya in his hermitage to pray during the night.
After I got married, I [had] three children. So, during the day, I was doing my job—when there was a war, it was fighting—then taking care of my family, and almost every night I’d go up to Annaya to pray in his heritage. Many nights I spent in his cell, sleeping on his mattress where he was sleeping, putting my hand on his wooden pillow, just to feel his spirit, to get in touch with him, to get some answers to my questions. And I was reading the Bible and praying and [inaudible].
So, I kept doing this from 1984 to 1994 for 10 years, and then in 1994—it was the night of November 10th—I went up to Annaya, and I started praying. I lit some candles, opened my Bible, and started reading the Bible, and then, around midnight—it was a very cold night then because Annaya is extremely cold, it is on a very high mountain—even though I was shivering from cold, then I started feeling some warm breeze coming and surrounding me. So, I started feeling warm, I was surprised because I've been coming to Annaya for years and years and always feeling this—I was always shivering from cold. So, I was surprised feeling this breeze surrounding me. I started thinking and analyzing the cause of this breeze, and when I was thinking, this breeze started becoming stronger and hotter. So, in a few minutes, there was a fierce, powerful wind blowing. It was... a strong wind and extremely hot, so I took off my pillow, and my shirt was sweating. It was very hot and blowing almost everything around me, so the trees were shaking, the leaves were flying; everything around me was shaking and flying, so I was like surprised, and I was shocked when I looked at the candles in front of me, and I saw that the flames of the candles were not moving, so the wind was blowing everything around me except the flames. They were standing still, so I thought that I might be hallucinating, and because I was always overthinking about what's happening, I decided to stretch out my hand and touch the things, just to check if I'm hallucinating or something needs to happen.
So, the last thing I remembered that I was kneeling down because of my fingers looking at the candles, and I decided to touch the flames. At that moment, before I moved my hand, I was like transported to another world. So, I stopped feeling my body; I felt out of my body. I stopped feeling my senses. I couldn't realize if I'm standing, kneeling down, feeling warm, feeling cold, and I stopped hearing anything; it was absolute calm. After all the noise of the wind, the night, foxes, and dogs around. So, it was an absolute calm, and I saw myself diving in a beautiful, powerful, bright light that I can never describe. It was a light shining like billions of suns all together, even much more powerful than billions of suns. I assure you that even our sun will apear to be like a small candle in this light, but it was not like the light that we know, it was not the hot light, light of energy, rays, or beams. It was a light which was alive, it was a living light, which was at the same time inside of me and outside of me and all around me and filling the universe. It was so beautiful, so powerful, so strong; it was not burning. It was so transparent, so beautiful that I can look at it easily for thousands of years.
And then I said to myself, “I'm dreaming.” So, he said to me, “no, you're not dreaming.” And he was talking to me without talking in a very mysterious way. He was not losing words or sentences, or voice or any language, but he was extremely clear. He said to me, “you’re not dreaming.” So, I said, “maybe I'm not conscious now.” So, he said, “now we are conscious. You have never been as conscious as you are now.” With the same way of communication that, believe me, I cannot describe well, but he was talking, as I said, without words, without a voice, without any language. It was really clear.
So, then I asked him, “who are you?” When I asked him, “who are you?” He didn't show me his face. He didn't tell me his name, but he revealed himself to me in this way, a special way because when I asked him, “who are you?”, I felt that he was invading me. I felt that something powerful was invading me and giving me a feeling of extremely deep peace and a sensation of joy—a huge feeling of joy, love, and tenderness. It was a feeling that I cannot describe easily because it was transcending the power of a human being to feel, but it was a lot of peace, a very deep sensation of peace, joy, love, tenderness, and affection. And he said to me, “this is me.”
So, at that very moment, I stopped asking questions. I feel that I don't want anything from this world, and all I need now is to stay as we are. So, I said to him, “Please don't go, and if you want to go anywhere, you can take me with you.” Because I was extremely happy. I was so happy that I didn't want to go somewhere. So, then he said to me, “I'm always everywhere.” And he disappeared. So, I found myself at the same place in the hermitage, looking at the candles, but I was like shocked again to see the candles that were totally consumed. I looked at my watch. It was 3:35 in the morning. I realized that about four hours and a half passed by in one second. I didn't feel time passing.
So, I took the remaining of the candles, put them in the bag with my Bible and went back to my car, which was at the monastery, 30 minutes walking. I was feeling extremely happy. I was feeling flying, filled with this feeling of love, peace, happiness, strength, and then I started feeling something on my arm. It was like a slight pressure, with a warm pressure, but I was always thinking about the light, about the communication, about what happened and what happened, and when I was walking, I started feeling that my sleeve stuck to my skin.
So, when I arrived in the car, I put on the light because it was dark, and then when I let out my sleeve, I looked at my arm. I saw that there were five fingers engraved in my flesh, and blood and water were coming out from the fingers, and blood was all over my arm. So, I was like shocked again, thinking that I might be hallucinating because I was seeing blood flooding from my arm.
So, I reached home. I saw my wife like every night. She was always the first person to receive me at home. She was shocked to see me for the first time because every night I used to come home. She was receiving me just checking that man back home to go back to sleep, but at that night when she saw me, she stood up and said, “what happened to you?” I said, “why are you asking?” She said, “because your face is white and your eyes are deep. You are surprised.” So, I told my story in a few words because I didn't know exactly what happened.
And then, at that point, I decided to leave everything and to dedicate my life to this light. So, I left my work, my activities, my belongings. I kept only my family, my wife and my three kids, and I decided to live for Christ, for his Church, to go around the world to tell the people about Jesus Christ because I felt very convinced that the people that don't know Jesus Christ are really losing their lives. They are very poor, and I wanted to share this love, this joy, and this peace with every human being on the earth.
So, I joined the TV network, the Catholic TV network in Lebanon. There was a small team of people, crazy people that decided to start a TV. You know, starting a Christian TV in the Middle East, in Lebanon, it's not something easy. It was very risky. So, I joined because I wanted to have this TV network to preach Jesus all around the world. It started [as] a small network covering only Beirut and the southern suburbs. We had the dream to have a huge network to cover the whole world, and our dream came true after eight years. So, in 2003, this network became covering the whole globe with different channels talking about Jesus, about the Church, about our saints, and preaching the message of Jesus.
So, this experience was repeated till now more than 62 times. Every time I saw the light, I lived this experience. Blood and water came out from the fingers for four or five days, and then they disappeared, leaving only some traces of the fingers. So, this is the external aspect of the experience. Now, let's talk about the message, which is the most important thing; why St. Sharbel is doing what he is doing now around the world.
As Abouna said, St. Sharbel is now the most active saint in the world, the most famous one. What is his purpose? He is a hermit. He doesn't like to show off; he is a hermit. He was always there in solitude, hidden. Now, he is all around the world showing the glory of God. What is his message what does he do? So, I met him till now I said more than 62 times, and every time I understand him more, and now I’m conveying to you his message in a few words just to know what does he want, what is he doing—all this—what he's doing for which purpose.
You know that I was asking questions at the beginning of the talk about life—why did God create us and why do we die? What are we doing on this planet? What is the purpose of our life? Because if we don't know this, we'll come to this world and leave this world without knowing what we are doing. So what St. Sharbel is doing is just—he’s reminding us about the purpose of our life on this planet. He's reminding the Christians about our faith, and he answers our questions.
When I was asking, why did God create us since we will die? St. Sharbel said that you will never die. You are not created to die. You were created for glory. You were created to live eternally with the Heavenly Father in His kingdom, in glory. We fell in this world because of our sins. So, you are not created at the beginning to go back to dust but for eternal life, but this eternal life, you have to choose it willingly. That's why Jesus came to our world to show us the way back home. So, St. Sharbel is reminding us that we don't believe, we don't belong to this world. We belong to our home, which is the Kingdom of God.
And when I was asking him about the love of God—how can God allow us to die? Since he is in love with us, not only is He loving us—because the nightmare of love is death. Can you imagine your beloved ones dying? The toughest thing that a human being can feel is the loss. Losing someone close to you. If God is loving you tremendously, He has this huge love for you, He will not permit or allow you to die. He doesn't want you to die. That's why He's giving you eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. If you think about the people that you love... think about your parents, your brothers and sisters, your children. When you love them so much, you're attached to them. You don't want to lose them or let them die, but we pull you. You cannot do anything, but God can. That's why He is granting us eternal life through Jesus, but we have to choose it. We have to choose eternal life. We have to choose our way. That's why St. Sharbel is reminding us to choose our way to heaven—to our home, to go back home—and he said that we need three things in our journey home.
The first thing is the Bible, the Word of God. You have to read the Bible, to understand the Bible, to live by the Bible, and St. Sharbel said you have to read the Bible – to read the Word of God so that His words will be flowing in your mind. We need it. We need the Word of God to get to know Jesus. We don't know Jesus without the Bible, without His words.
The second thing is the Holy Eucharist. St. Sharbel said that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ. It's the real presence of Jesus. He is here—body, blood, spirit, soul, and divinity—and through the communion with Jesus, the Holy Eucharist, we get eternal life. So, this eternal life that God is granting us, because He loves us, is granted to us through the Holy Eucharist by the communion with Jesus who is eternal. When you get in communion with somebody, it’s eternal; it will become eternal. So eternally it is granted to us, given to us, through the Holy Eucharist. This is the mystery of my grandfather that was his own final.
And the third thing is our mother Mary, who will accompany us to her son, Jesus. As St. Sharbel said, that through the Bible and the Holy Eucharist and our mother Mary, we will be back home safely. We are living now to live eternally with our Heavenly Father, with our Heavenly Father, with Jesus Christ, with St. Sharbel and all the saints, and St. Sharbel said to me until now what I'm saying to you. That one day, when we reach home, we will see Jesus face to face. This is real. Jesus is real. Jesus is true. We will see him face to face. We will see our mother Mary face to face. We will shake hands with St. Sharbel, with all the saints and the angels, because we belong there. It's our own.
So, we are all invited to go home, and we were all invited when we were baptized.
Everyone who was baptized—this is an invitation for the kingdom of God. All what we have to do is to accept this invitation to not lose our way back home because St. Sharbel said, unfortunately, most of the population of this planet now are losing their way home. So, it's reminding us to just rethink about our life and choose again the way of Jesus to go back home where we will be.
At the end—I will always finish by this reflection—let's think that we are sure in 100 years [from] now, none of you will be here including myself. I said 100 years to be on the safe side, okay, because I’m sure that 100 years [from] now, none of us will be. Somebody else will be sitting in your places, and somebody else will be in your houses, using your cars and all your belongings. We will not be here. So where do you think we will be? We have to think about it because it's very serious. So we are sure that in 100 years if you are not here, somebody else will be here and you will be in another place. So we have to choose our way back to this place. So, exactly as we are gathering here now, we should be gathering home in the kingdom of God in heaven where we belong.
So, St. Sharbel is reminding us to wake up. It's a wake up call for humanity to know what is our last destination, our final destination. It's heaven. Not to get attached to this world because we believe, and St. Sharbel said, even your bones will be left to you. Your bones don't belong to you. So, this is the message of St. Sharbel for us. It's like a wake-up call; just wake up. Go back to your church. Go back to your faith. Live the sacraments, go to Mass, have Communion, read the Bible, pray—pray the Rosary, venerate our Holy Mother Mary—because this is what is the most important that we can do in our lives, to reach home, because one day we will leave this planet to go back where we belong, to the glory of God. Because St. Sharbel now is living in the glory of God, and he wants us to be like him with God. So, at the end, I would like to ask you to pray for me; I'm praying for you. And the most important thing is, to me, in heaven. So maybe I will see you once again or not, I don't know. I'm roaming around the world, but the most important thing is to be in heaven, right? So, thank you, and see you in heaven.
As I said, some of his brothers and sisters, villagers, some of them were mocking him, calling him a saint, because he was weird. Some others, they were considering him as a real saint. So, at the age of 23, he disappeared from this village after he was praying in the forest of the Cedars of God. In the bible, it's written that God planted the cedars of Lebanon—that's why this forest today is called the “Cedars of God.” So, one day, St. Sharbel was praying there, and something happened to him, so he left everything. He left his village without telling anyone, and he went to the monastery to join the Lebanese order of Maronites. So, he went to the monastery, and he left the monastery because some things there didn't please him, so he went to the seminary of the monks in Kfifan. He studied theology for 6-7 years, and then he was assigned to Annaya, the monastery of St. Maron, where his body is there now; it's becoming the shrine of St. Sharbel. So, he lived 16 years in the monastery, and then the last 23 years of his life, he was a hermit at the hermitage of Annaya.
You know, the life of the hermit is extremely tough. So, he was living almost in solitude, always praying, working in the fields, planting, harvesting. He was not allowed to sleep more than three hours every 24 hours, and he was pleased to do this. He was fond of prayers. He was allowed only to eat a piece of bread, a few vegetables during the day once. He was not allowed to light any fire during wintertime even though the hermitage in winter was totally covered with snow. So, he was living on the floor. He was putting his head on a pillow—it was a piece of wood and without a cover. So, you know it's tough. He was not allowed to eat anything which was sweet. So, he was planting, collecting, harvesting grapes, but he never tasted any grapes. It needs a very strong will to live as a hermit.
So, during his lifetime, he was performing a lot of miracles. So, they were bringing him a lot of sick people; he was healing them. He was a friend of nature; he was talking to the foxes, talking to the snakes, to the birds. He spelled away the locusts when they came to invade Lebanon and eat all the grains. So, he was someone very special. He had a mysterious life. None of the human beings have ever seen his face. He was always looking downward. He never lifted up his eyes to look at any face or at anyone. That's why they were considering him as naive or simple because he was always connected to heaven. They felt that he has always distracted from this world.
So, on the eve of 1898 at the age of 70, the eve of Christmas, he died in the hermitage, and they brought his body down to the monastery. They put him in the church. The monks were surrounded and praying. So, they saw a light coming out from the tabernacle, coming to the tomb of St. Sharbel, illuminating his head. So, the second day they had the funeral. They put him in the tomb close to the church, and in the evening some mysterious light started coming up, shining from the tomb of St. Sharbel. So, this light kept shining everywhere, and at that period, we were under the occupation of the Turkish army. So, some of the Turkish soldiers, they came to the monastery to check about the source of this strange light. So, they searched the monastery, and they couldn't find anything, and they were saying there was nothing visible by that time, so the light should be coming from some type of fire. So, they didn't find anything.
After a few months—it was in the month of May as well—so, they decided to open the door to see what is the source of the light inside. So, they opened the door and they took out the body of St. Sharbel. He was like sleeping. He was not corrupted. He was flexing. His clothes all were rotten and corrupted. So, they changed his clothes. They put him in a casket in the monastery. After a while, they noticed that he was sweating. So, they were seeing droplets of sweat on his forehead, on his hands, on his feet, and the casket started being filled with this mixture of blood and sweat. So, you know, the monks were not used to this type of thing. They started changing his clothes almost every day, and then they got tired from changing his clothes. They didn't have washing machines, so you have to wash his clothes by their hands. They were so busy working. They thought that they were wasting their time always washing the clothes of St. Sharbel, who was always sweating. So, they decided to stop him from sweating.
So, the first thing they did, they put his body on the rooftop, under the sun, under the summer sun, for three, four months, thinking that it will dry out. So, he didn't dry out; he was always sweating, so they decided to do something else. So, they went to plan B, which was terrific. They decided to cut his body and take everything out because they thought that he was filled with food—that's why he was oozing to the outside. So, they took out his lungs, stomach, his intestines; they emptied his body, and he kept sweating. So, the other plan was to put his body into choke. So, they put him in a kind of choke to drain on. So, they burned his skin. He became black, but he kept sweating. So, they decided to put him in a tunnel, a small tunnel, a small cave, close to the church, and they built a wall. So, they came and got rid of this body, and then after a few days, they saw that this liquid was coming out from among the stones of the wall. So, they dismounted the wall again; they took out this body, and by that time, the Patriarch knew about what the monks are doing to the body of St. Sharbel. He was upset, so he ordered them to put him back in the tomb, and he said that anyone who will open the tomb or touch the body of St. Sharbel will be excommunicated. So, he slept there for 52 years, from 1898 to 1950.
In 1950—you know, St. Sharbel has a sense of humor—so he appeared to the superior of the monastery, his name was Boutros, like our beloved friend. So, he appeared to him at night, and he said to him, “Father Boutros, go out and open my tomb.” So, Father Boutros was afraid. He was not afraid of St. Sharbel; he was afraid of the patriarch because he would be excommunicated if he opened the tomb, and this story, I heard it from Fr. Boutros himself before he died 20 years ago. So, he said to me that St. Sharbel, when he appeared to him, he was thinking about what will happen if I go out and open his tomb. So, he disregarded St. Sharbel and went back to sleep. So, the second night St. Sharbel appeared to him, and he said the same thing: “Fr. Boutros, go out and open my tomb.” And for the second time, Father Boutros disregarded the request of St. Sharbel. So, the third night, St. Sharbel appeared to him again, and he said that he was very serious. So, he said to him, “Father Boutros, I'm telling you, go out and open my door.” So, this time, Father Boutros was afraid of St. Sharbel for that year. So, he went out, he opened the tomb of St. Sharbel, he found his body floating on blood in his casket. So, he took his body, carried his body on his shoulders. They took him inside and put him in a new casket. He changed his clothes, and he was always sweating this liquid, which was a mixture of blood and sweat, till the year 1965.
In the year 1965, he was declared blessed. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI, and at that moment, he stopped sweating, and then his flesh evaporated, and he was still just a skeleton with his skin. In the year 1977, he was canonized, declared a Saint by Pope Paul VI as well. And in the year 1950, when this tomb was opened, thousands of miracles started happening. So many people they went to visit—they were crippled; they came back without their sticks, many people were blind, so they started to see, many deaf people started hearing, and thousands of miracles started happening, and it’s still ongoing until this day. You know what you've heard about the miracles of St. Sharbel? The registered miracles now in the monastery of St. Sharbel’s shrine are around 30,000 registered miracles, and I'm sure that there are hundreds of thousands around the world which are not registered. So, St. Sharbel is roaming the world, interfering, intervening in the life of people, healing some sick people, changing the life of many people, converting other people.
So, he is moving in Lebanon, and we in Lebanon, we feel that St. Sharbel is living with us, among us in our household. So, every one of us is considering that St. Sharbel is one member of the family. We always feel it; we always feel that he is always alive among us. So, in the year 1977, after his canonization, I started going out to Annaya with my parents to visit and to pray, like all the companions because every Lebanese has at least to go up to Annaya once or twice a year.
So, I got to know St. Sharbel, and I was like fascinated by his life, by the mystery of his life, because he was always silent and in solitude, always connected to heaven. It's like we are now connected to the internet network, and we panic when we lose our connection. So, St. Sharbel was always connected to heaven and disconnected from this world, and then I was asking where to get this power to go around the world and to reach people, to interfere with their lives and change their lives because I was then asking a lot of questions about our faith.
So, because I was born in a Maronite family in Beirut, my grandfather was a priest. So, like all the Maronite families by that time, we were very well known that you are the prayerful people. The Maronites are always praying, and we had a tradition. All the families were gathering in the evening all together to pray—the grandparents, the parents, the grandchildren, their children. All the families, during that time I'm talking, the Maronite families were gathering to pray together and especially to venerate our Holy Mother Mary because we are very devoted to her. And I loved it. I loved a lot the prayers at home because I was at ease, feeling comfortable praying, singing, chanting with my parents and my grandparents and my brothers.
What I didn't like to do on Sundays was [go to] the church. I didn't like the Mass. I think that, like, all the kids didn't like the Mass because they have to sit still without moving, without talking, without doing anything for one hour, watching the priest doing things that they don't understand, and I had an additional problem that the priest was my grandfather. He was living with us at home. I had to go to the church on Sundays to watch my grandfather celebrating the Mass. It was so annoying, but what was more annoying and shocking to me was the Mass by itself because I spent the whole time at the Mass waiting for the last sentence of my grandfather, which was “go in peace.” So, when he said, “go in peace,” I was like relieved—okay, we’re done now—but the problem with me was just before this when the people would stand in line like we did today to receive this piece of bread, this host in their moth.
For you, it’s something very normal; you don't ask questions about it, but for me it was a scandal because I was the one who was preparing those hosts for my grandfather because during that time, we baked them at home those days. At that time, we spent Saturday night—I used to spend it with my grandmother preparing the hosts for my grandfather. For me, it was a very pleasant time because I did it. I used to make hundreds of them—500, 600 pieces. I used to eat half of them because I loved the hosts, and I’d leave the rest for my grandfather for this celebration, and I was, like, looking at the people at the end of the mass standing in line so that everyone will have one and cold—because hot is much more delicious—so I was thinking maybe I can teach people how to make them at home. They can eat as much as they can and hot and delicious instead of coming to the church to sit for one hour waiting for them to have only this one piece in their mouth.
So, for me, all this mystery—it was something like an issue that I have to resolve. So, I was asking my grandfather about his job. What is he doing in the church? What exactly is he doing? What will happen to this host?
So, my grandfather was a silent man. He spoke only maybe three or four words a year, and he didn't like to explain it out to me. So, after my insistence, he revealed to me a secret as a priest, and he said to me that he's a priest, and the job of the priest is to pray to God, and God will descend from heaven. He will reside in these hosts, and people will eat, and because God is love, in this way, love will enter their hearts, and they will start loving each other. And he said to me, “when you grow up, you will understand.”
So, I put everything in my mind, and I started growing up, and I grew up really fast. So, I was going to school, playing, like all the children, but always thinking about this mystery of my grandfather. How can God, the creator of the universe, just respond to the call of my grandfather, come down from heaven, reside in this host that people can eat. So, I believed my grandfather was not lying to me, but I couldn't understand how this can happen. So, I went reading books, making researches, thinking, and my first communion, I received my first Bible. It was an illustrated Bible, and I read it all, and I was fascinated by Jesus Christ. I loved him a lot. He’s very special. So, I kept reading the Bible already. So, I was always thinking about this mystery of the incarnation, about Jesus, about God, always thinking about God, looking at the stars, asking why there are stars in the sky. So, I was always thinking about creation. I wanted to know more about God—why we cannot see him, talk to him. What is this mystery? What is the mechanism that He invented to come down in these pieces of bread?
So, I had a very beautiful childhood. I was so happy, as I said, playing, studying, reading, and was extremely smart. I was always the first rank in the school. If you look at the palmarès, you'll see my picture as an honored student. So, everything was going great until 1975.
In 1975, the war burst in Lebanon and startled the world. It was a terrible war between the Christians and the Muslims, a civil war. My home was on the borderline between the two parts, between the Christian area and the Muslim area. So, I joined the Christian forces to defend our homes, churches, schools, to do what I had. And I joined the Christian forces; I was only 13 years old. I was like a child. I was playing guitar by then, so I left my guitar, I took the machine gun and started fighting, and for a child of 13 years, to fight is something very, very hard, very tough. So, my question now changed. I had serious questions in my head because I was losing every day a lot of my friends. They were killed, injured, and life became extremely serious, and I started asking a lot of questions about life.
Okay, I thought about God, the beautiful God that can descend from heaven, we can eat Him. But what is the meaning of life? Why did God create us? And I was always asking, what are we doing on this planet? And the main question was because I was living among people who were dying every day, losing a lot of thousands of my friends during the war that lasted 15 years. So, I was asking, why do we die? Why did God create us if at the end we will die, we will come back to dust? And I started doubting the love of God. I thought, “if God is love, He is loving us, how can He permit that you die and come back to dust?” You know, when you create something, you get in love with it, you get attached to it, you don't want to lose it. Can you imagine painting a beautiful painting then destroying it? Or this sculptor making a beautiful statue and then destroying it? So, I was thinking, why did God create us since at the end we will become dust again?
So, even though I was confused, I was always praying, reading the Bible, fighting, and studying. So, those are the three things that I was doing for a long time, thinking that I will meet God in a way. So, even by science—I was going very deep in science; I studied at school, researches, and then after that I went to [the] engineering school of the Jesuit University of Beirut. I specialized in electromechanical engineering, and then I received a scholarship to go to the UK, and I specialized in nuclear engineering in the UK, and I was always having a lot of researches about the universe, the planets, the galaxies, and life. And at the same time, I was, as I said, fighting and reading the Bible almost every night. I was thinking that either God will reveal himself through prayers or I will discover God through silence or I will get killed in war and then I will see him face to face [inaudible].
And at that time, when St. Sharbel appeared in 1977, after a few years, I started going up to Annaya almost every night to pray in his hermitage because I wanted to get these questions, to get their answers. I knew, I was believing—I still believe—that St. Sharbel is always going and coming to the other world. He's appearing in this world and then coming back to where he is, and I thought that maybe he can give me some hints, some clues about what's happening on the other side of life. So, I started going up almost every night to Annaya in his hermitage to pray during the night.
After I got married, I [had] three children. So, during the day, I was doing my job—when there was a war, it was fighting—then taking care of my family, and almost every night I’d go up to Annaya to pray in his heritage. Many nights I spent in his cell, sleeping on his mattress where he was sleeping, putting my hand on his wooden pillow, just to feel his spirit, to get in touch with him, to get some answers to my questions. And I was reading the Bible and praying and [inaudible].
So, I kept doing this from 1984 to 1994 for 10 years, and then in 1994—it was the night of November 10th—I went up to Annaya, and I started praying. I lit some candles, opened my Bible, and started reading the Bible, and then, around midnight—it was a very cold night then because Annaya is extremely cold, it is on a very high mountain—even though I was shivering from cold, then I started feeling some warm breeze coming and surrounding me. So, I started feeling warm, I was surprised because I've been coming to Annaya for years and years and always feeling this—I was always shivering from cold. So, I was surprised feeling this breeze surrounding me. I started thinking and analyzing the cause of this breeze, and when I was thinking, this breeze started becoming stronger and hotter. So, in a few minutes, there was a fierce, powerful wind blowing. It was... a strong wind and extremely hot, so I took off my pillow, and my shirt was sweating. It was very hot and blowing almost everything around me, so the trees were shaking, the leaves were flying; everything around me was shaking and flying, so I was like surprised, and I was shocked when I looked at the candles in front of me, and I saw that the flames of the candles were not moving, so the wind was blowing everything around me except the flames. They were standing still, so I thought that I might be hallucinating, and because I was always overthinking about what's happening, I decided to stretch out my hand and touch the things, just to check if I'm hallucinating or something needs to happen.
So, the last thing I remembered that I was kneeling down because of my fingers looking at the candles, and I decided to touch the flames. At that moment, before I moved my hand, I was like transported to another world. So, I stopped feeling my body; I felt out of my body. I stopped feeling my senses. I couldn't realize if I'm standing, kneeling down, feeling warm, feeling cold, and I stopped hearing anything; it was absolute calm. After all the noise of the wind, the night, foxes, and dogs around. So, it was an absolute calm, and I saw myself diving in a beautiful, powerful, bright light that I can never describe. It was a light shining like billions of suns all together, even much more powerful than billions of suns. I assure you that even our sun will apear to be like a small candle in this light, but it was not like the light that we know, it was not the hot light, light of energy, rays, or beams. It was a light which was alive, it was a living light, which was at the same time inside of me and outside of me and all around me and filling the universe. It was so beautiful, so powerful, so strong; it was not burning. It was so transparent, so beautiful that I can look at it easily for thousands of years.
And then I said to myself, “I'm dreaming.” So, he said to me, “no, you're not dreaming.” And he was talking to me without talking in a very mysterious way. He was not losing words or sentences, or voice or any language, but he was extremely clear. He said to me, “you’re not dreaming.” So, I said, “maybe I'm not conscious now.” So, he said, “now we are conscious. You have never been as conscious as you are now.” With the same way of communication that, believe me, I cannot describe well, but he was talking, as I said, without words, without a voice, without any language. It was really clear.
So, then I asked him, “who are you?” When I asked him, “who are you?” He didn't show me his face. He didn't tell me his name, but he revealed himself to me in this way, a special way because when I asked him, “who are you?”, I felt that he was invading me. I felt that something powerful was invading me and giving me a feeling of extremely deep peace and a sensation of joy—a huge feeling of joy, love, and tenderness. It was a feeling that I cannot describe easily because it was transcending the power of a human being to feel, but it was a lot of peace, a very deep sensation of peace, joy, love, tenderness, and affection. And he said to me, “this is me.”
So, at that very moment, I stopped asking questions. I feel that I don't want anything from this world, and all I need now is to stay as we are. So, I said to him, “Please don't go, and if you want to go anywhere, you can take me with you.” Because I was extremely happy. I was so happy that I didn't want to go somewhere. So, then he said to me, “I'm always everywhere.” And he disappeared. So, I found myself at the same place in the hermitage, looking at the candles, but I was like shocked again to see the candles that were totally consumed. I looked at my watch. It was 3:35 in the morning. I realized that about four hours and a half passed by in one second. I didn't feel time passing.
So, I took the remaining of the candles, put them in the bag with my Bible and went back to my car, which was at the monastery, 30 minutes walking. I was feeling extremely happy. I was feeling flying, filled with this feeling of love, peace, happiness, strength, and then I started feeling something on my arm. It was like a slight pressure, with a warm pressure, but I was always thinking about the light, about the communication, about what happened and what happened, and when I was walking, I started feeling that my sleeve stuck to my skin.
So, when I arrived in the car, I put on the light because it was dark, and then when I let out my sleeve, I looked at my arm. I saw that there were five fingers engraved in my flesh, and blood and water were coming out from the fingers, and blood was all over my arm. So, I was like shocked again, thinking that I might be hallucinating because I was seeing blood flooding from my arm.
So, I reached home. I saw my wife like every night. She was always the first person to receive me at home. She was shocked to see me for the first time because every night I used to come home. She was receiving me just checking that man back home to go back to sleep, but at that night when she saw me, she stood up and said, “what happened to you?” I said, “why are you asking?” She said, “because your face is white and your eyes are deep. You are surprised.” So, I told my story in a few words because I didn't know exactly what happened.
And then, at that point, I decided to leave everything and to dedicate my life to this light. So, I left my work, my activities, my belongings. I kept only my family, my wife and my three kids, and I decided to live for Christ, for his Church, to go around the world to tell the people about Jesus Christ because I felt very convinced that the people that don't know Jesus Christ are really losing their lives. They are very poor, and I wanted to share this love, this joy, and this peace with every human being on the earth.
So, I joined the TV network, the Catholic TV network in Lebanon. There was a small team of people, crazy people that decided to start a TV. You know, starting a Christian TV in the Middle East, in Lebanon, it's not something easy. It was very risky. So, I joined because I wanted to have this TV network to preach Jesus all around the world. It started [as] a small network covering only Beirut and the southern suburbs. We had the dream to have a huge network to cover the whole world, and our dream came true after eight years. So, in 2003, this network became covering the whole globe with different channels talking about Jesus, about the Church, about our saints, and preaching the message of Jesus.
So, this experience was repeated till now more than 62 times. Every time I saw the light, I lived this experience. Blood and water came out from the fingers for four or five days, and then they disappeared, leaving only some traces of the fingers. So, this is the external aspect of the experience. Now, let's talk about the message, which is the most important thing; why St. Sharbel is doing what he is doing now around the world.
As Abouna said, St. Sharbel is now the most active saint in the world, the most famous one. What is his purpose? He is a hermit. He doesn't like to show off; he is a hermit. He was always there in solitude, hidden. Now, he is all around the world showing the glory of God. What is his message what does he do? So, I met him till now I said more than 62 times, and every time I understand him more, and now I’m conveying to you his message in a few words just to know what does he want, what is he doing—all this—what he's doing for which purpose.
You know that I was asking questions at the beginning of the talk about life—why did God create us and why do we die? What are we doing on this planet? What is the purpose of our life? Because if we don't know this, we'll come to this world and leave this world without knowing what we are doing. So what St. Sharbel is doing is just—he’s reminding us about the purpose of our life on this planet. He's reminding the Christians about our faith, and he answers our questions.
When I was asking, why did God create us since we will die? St. Sharbel said that you will never die. You are not created to die. You were created for glory. You were created to live eternally with the Heavenly Father in His kingdom, in glory. We fell in this world because of our sins. So, you are not created at the beginning to go back to dust but for eternal life, but this eternal life, you have to choose it willingly. That's why Jesus came to our world to show us the way back home. So, St. Sharbel is reminding us that we don't believe, we don't belong to this world. We belong to our home, which is the Kingdom of God.
And when I was asking him about the love of God—how can God allow us to die? Since he is in love with us, not only is He loving us—because the nightmare of love is death. Can you imagine your beloved ones dying? The toughest thing that a human being can feel is the loss. Losing someone close to you. If God is loving you tremendously, He has this huge love for you, He will not permit or allow you to die. He doesn't want you to die. That's why He's giving you eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. If you think about the people that you love... think about your parents, your brothers and sisters, your children. When you love them so much, you're attached to them. You don't want to lose them or let them die, but we pull you. You cannot do anything, but God can. That's why He is granting us eternal life through Jesus, but we have to choose it. We have to choose eternal life. We have to choose our way. That's why St. Sharbel is reminding us to choose our way to heaven—to our home, to go back home—and he said that we need three things in our journey home.
The first thing is the Bible, the Word of God. You have to read the Bible, to understand the Bible, to live by the Bible, and St. Sharbel said you have to read the Bible – to read the Word of God so that His words will be flowing in your mind. We need it. We need the Word of God to get to know Jesus. We don't know Jesus without the Bible, without His words.
The second thing is the Holy Eucharist. St. Sharbel said that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ. It's the real presence of Jesus. He is here—body, blood, spirit, soul, and divinity—and through the communion with Jesus, the Holy Eucharist, we get eternal life. So, this eternal life that God is granting us, because He loves us, is granted to us through the Holy Eucharist by the communion with Jesus who is eternal. When you get in communion with somebody, it’s eternal; it will become eternal. So eternally it is granted to us, given to us, through the Holy Eucharist. This is the mystery of my grandfather that was his own final.
And the third thing is our mother Mary, who will accompany us to her son, Jesus. As St. Sharbel said, that through the Bible and the Holy Eucharist and our mother Mary, we will be back home safely. We are living now to live eternally with our Heavenly Father, with our Heavenly Father, with Jesus Christ, with St. Sharbel and all the saints, and St. Sharbel said to me until now what I'm saying to you. That one day, when we reach home, we will see Jesus face to face. This is real. Jesus is real. Jesus is true. We will see him face to face. We will see our mother Mary face to face. We will shake hands with St. Sharbel, with all the saints and the angels, because we belong there. It's our own.
So, we are all invited to go home, and we were all invited when we were baptized.
Everyone who was baptized—this is an invitation for the kingdom of God. All what we have to do is to accept this invitation to not lose our way back home because St. Sharbel said, unfortunately, most of the population of this planet now are losing their way home. So, it's reminding us to just rethink about our life and choose again the way of Jesus to go back home where we will be.
At the end—I will always finish by this reflection—let's think that we are sure in 100 years [from] now, none of you will be here including myself. I said 100 years to be on the safe side, okay, because I’m sure that 100 years [from] now, none of us will be. Somebody else will be sitting in your places, and somebody else will be in your houses, using your cars and all your belongings. We will not be here. So where do you think we will be? We have to think about it because it's very serious. So we are sure that in 100 years if you are not here, somebody else will be here and you will be in another place. So we have to choose our way back to this place. So, exactly as we are gathering here now, we should be gathering home in the kingdom of God in heaven where we belong.
So, St. Sharbel is reminding us to wake up. It's a wake up call for humanity to know what is our last destination, our final destination. It's heaven. Not to get attached to this world because we believe, and St. Sharbel said, even your bones will be left to you. Your bones don't belong to you. So, this is the message of St. Sharbel for us. It's like a wake-up call; just wake up. Go back to your church. Go back to your faith. Live the sacraments, go to Mass, have Communion, read the Bible, pray—pray the Rosary, venerate our Holy Mother Mary—because this is what is the most important that we can do in our lives, to reach home, because one day we will leave this planet to go back where we belong, to the glory of God. Because St. Sharbel now is living in the glory of God, and he wants us to be like him with God. So, at the end, I would like to ask you to pray for me; I'm praying for you. And the most important thing is, to me, in heaven. So maybe I will see you once again or not, I don't know. I'm roaming around the world, but the most important thing is to be in heaven, right? So, thank you, and see you in heaven.
