SPEAKER_00: If I were to ask you to name one of the greatest saints of the nineteenth century, most Catholics would probably mention Saint John Bieni, Saint Therese of Lisu, or maybe even Saint John Bosco.
SPEAKER_00: Very few would think of today's saint.
SPEAKER_00: Yet around the world millions of Christians know his name and have experienced his intercession.
SPEAKER_00: Today the church celebrates the feast of Saint Charbel Makluf, a humble Lebanese monk whose life reminds us that the greatest miracles are born from hidden holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Charbell was born in Lebanon in eighteen twenty eight into a simple Maronite Catholic family.
SPEAKER_00: His father died when he was still very young, and his mother raised him in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: As a boy he would often leave his village and climb into the hills to pray alone.
SPEAKER_00: While other children were playing, he sought silence, even that his heart belonged completely to God.
SPEAKER_00: At the age of twenty three he quietly left his home and entered the Lebanese Maronite order.
SPEAKER_00: He did not even tell his family beforehand.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that if he did they would beg him to stay.
SPEAKER_00: Instead he entrusted everything to God.
SPEAKER_00: He took the name Charbell, and after a second century Christian martyr, he took the name as a sign that his life would belong entirely to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His fellow monks quietly noticed something unusual about him.
SPEAKER_00: He loved silence.
SPEAKER_00: He avoided attention, yet he was never interested in recognition or honors.
SPEAKER_00: He simply wanted to pray and be with God.
SPEAKER_00: After his ordination he spent sixteen years in the monastery before asking permission to become a hermit.
SPEAKER_00: For the next twenty three years he lived in a tiny stone hermitage overlooking the mountains of Lebanon.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that, twenty three years.
SPEAKER_00: No social media, no travel, no conferences, no books written, no interviews, no public ministry as we would normally think of it.
SPEAKER_00: His days were filled with the Eucharist, manual labor, fasting, silence, and long, long hours of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So the world as life looked almost ignis insignificant, but heaven saw something entirely different.
SPEAKER_00: When Saint Charbell died while celebrating Mass in eighteen ninety eight, extraordinary things began to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Pilgrims reported healings.
SPEAKER_00: The sick recovered.
SPEAKER_00: People experienced profound conversions.
SPEAKER_00: Even more astonishing, witnesses observed an unexplained light surrounding his tomb for months after his burial.
SPEAKER_00: When his tomb was opened, his body was found to be remarkably preserved, and for years a mysterious fluid continued to flow from it.
SPEAKER_00: These events drew thousands of people and led to careful investigation by church authorities.
SPEAKER_00: To this day, countless medical documents has documented healings and have been attributed to his intercession, making him one of the most renowned miracle workers ever in this modern era.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I find most beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest miracle of Saint Charbell was not what happened after his death.
SPEAKER_00: It was the life he lived before it.
SPEAKER_00: He spent decades allowing God to cultivate the soil of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Once again Jesus explains the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: Some seeds fell on the path, some fell on rocky ground, some seeds fell among the thorns, and some seeds fell on rich soil.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something the seed is always the same.
SPEAKER_00: The sower is always the same.
SPEAKER_00: The difference is the soil.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Charbell became rich in soil.
SPEAKER_00: Every day through prayer, silence, fasting, confession, the Eucharist and obedience, he removed the rocks of pride.
SPEAKER_00: He pulled out the weeds of distraction.
SPEAKER_00: He refused to let anxieties of the world choke the Word of God, and little by little, year after year his heart became completely available to grace.
SPEAKER_00: We often want extraordinary holiness without ordinary faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: We want dramatic conversions.
SPEAKER_00: We want visible miracles.
SPEAKER_00: We want, we want, we want, we want instant sanctity.
SPEAKER_00: But saints are not made in dramatic moments.
SPEAKER_00: They're made in thousands and thousands of hidden small acts of fidelity that no one can see.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Charbell teaches us something about this noisy world, world that's desperately wanting our attention.
SPEAKER_00: Silence is not empty.
SPEAKER_00: Silence is where God speaks.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture fears silence.
SPEAKER_00: We fill every empty space with noise, with music, with podcasts, television, emails, notifications.
SPEAKER_00: We're constantly connected to everyone except God.
SPEAKER_00: Charbell reminds us that if we never become silent, we may never hear the voice that matters most.
SPEAKER_00: The irony is remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: A man who spent most of his life hidden in a mountain hermitage now inspires millions of people throughout the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's how God works.
SPEAKER_00: The world measures greatness by visibility.
SPEAKER_00: God measures greatness by holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps today we should ask ourselves that question.
SPEAKER_00: Same question Jesus asks through the parable.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of soil am I?
SPEAKER_00: Has my heart become hard?
SPEAKER_00: Is it shallow?
SPEAKER_00: Is it crowded with worries, ambition, distraction, and noise?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it open enough for the Word of God to take deep root?
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, if we cultivate our hearts as faithfully as Saint Charbell cultivated his, then the same exact word of God that transformed a quiet monk in the mountains of Lebanon can also transform you as well.
SPEAKER_00: Because in every age God continues to do his greatest miracles, his greatest work, not through those who seek to be noticed, but through those who quietly allow him to make their hearts into rich soil.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.