Jul. 24 Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time; Opt Mem of St. Sharbel (Charbel) Makhlūf, Priest, Opt. Mem.

The Optional Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhlūf (1828-1868) is celebrated today. He was a Lebanese monk, born in a small mountain village and ordained in 1858. Devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he spent the last twenty-three years of his life as a hermit. Despite temptations to wealth and comfort, Saint Sharbel taught the value of poverty, self-sacrifice and prayer by the way he lived his life. This optional memorial is new to the USA liturgical calendar and was inscribed on July 24, 2004.

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