Veneration
In 1925, Charbel's canonization was proposed by Pope Pius XI. In 1950, his image reportedly appeared in a photograph taken by Father George Webby, a Maronite priest of Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the United States, taken during a visit he had made to the monastery where Charbel had lived. Because of this appearance, Charbel's grave was opened in the presence of an official committee which included doctors, who verified the soundness of the body. After the grave had been opened and inspected, it was reputed that the variety of healing incidents multiplied. Several post-mortem miracles were attributed to him, including periods in 1927 and 1950 when a bloody "sweat" flowed from his corpse, soaking his vestments.
In 1954, Pope Pius XII signed a decree authorizing his Cause for canonization. On 5 December 1965, Pope Paul VI officiated at the ceremony of the beatification of Father Charbel during the closing days of the Second Vatican Council. Although Charbel was a Maronite Catholic, not a Roman Catholic, in his authority as universal head of the Catholic Church in all its parts, Pope Paul had the ceremony held at St. Peter's Basilica and presided over it.
In 1976, Pope Paul VI signed the decree of canonization. The ceremony in which the Blessed Charbel was then declared a saint took place in the Vatican on 9 October 1977.
Read more about this topic: Charbel Makhluf
Famous quotes containing the word veneration:
“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)