St. Sharbel Mass set Oct. 16

An annual Mass celebrating one of the Catholic Church’s greatest healing saints will be celebrated for the 43rd year in the Diocese of Baton Rouge.

The St. Sharbel Mass is scheduled Oct. 16 at St. Patrick Church in Baton Rouge at 1:30 p.m. Father Alex Harb will celebrate the traditional Eastern Rite Mass, with Bishop Emeritus Sam Jacobs of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux the scheduled homilist. Bishop Jacobs will also give a talk following the post-Mass reception. 

The Mass is open to all, especially “people who want to learn about the rich variety of the church, people who enjoy poetry, music, are attracted to poverty or monasticism,” said Father Harb, a Baton Rouge native who was ordained a Maronite Catholic priest April 23, 2016 at St. George Church in Baton Rouge by Bishop A. Elias Zaidsan, bishop of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic Church dating to the first century and named after St. Maron, a Syrian hermit who lived in the fourth century.

“For me, the Maronite spirituality is more holistic than Roman spirituality,” added Father Harb, who returned to Baton Rouge in 2021 after spending five years serving at churches in Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio. “In Roman spirituality you have a devotional life, which implies you have a non-devotional life. 

In the Maronite spirituality, the idea is because of this close relationship to monasticism, being with your family can be prayer, sleeping can be prayer, working can be prayer. 

“The way we talk about our spiritual lives our theology, is more holistic.”

St. Sharbel was born Youssel Antoun Maakhlos in Bekaa Kafra, a small mountain village in Lebanon, on May 8. 1828. He learned Arabic and Syriac from the priests of the village. 

St. Sharbel left his family in 1851 at the age of 23 to begin his noviate in the monastery of Mayfoul. He chose the name “Sharbel” in honor of a second century martyr in the Antiochere Church. He was ordained in 1859 as a priest of the Lebanese Maronite Order.

“God is beyond our understanding,
so if you try to describe the beauty
of the earth in a single painting,
you will fall short.”
Father Alex Harb

St. Sharbel, who was known as “the saint inebriated with God,” died in 1898. Following his death reports surfaced of people seeing lights around his tomb. Eventually the tomb was opened and St. Sharbel’s body was found incorrupt and exuding sweat and blood. 

Through the years, numerous healings have been attributed to St. Sharbel, including Baton Rouge resident Margaret Bieser. Bieser, a New Orleans native and lifelong Catholic, said she experienced a miraculous healing through St. Sharbel in 2016, two years after she was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic pain condition that affects the nerves which carry sensations to a person’s face.

Bieser had spent two years taking prescriptions with little improvement and at one point her neurologist suggested surgery. 

In January of 2016 she went to confession with Father Charbel Jamhoury, who was then pastor at St. Agnes Church in Baton Rouge. Father Charbel also blessed her with holy oil and prayed with her with a relic of St. Sharbel.

“Kneeling in the sacristy (at St. Agnes) I held the relic and prayer card of St. Sharbel,” Bieser said. “I begged St. Sharbel to obtain a miracle and to let me know that I had received a miracle of healing before I returned to Houston (for surgery).” 

One day later, Bieser had no pain and that continued for four days. 

During her next doctor’s appointment the doctor told her, “ ‘You had a miracle. Cancel the surgery.’ ”

Later that year she and her husband traveled to Lebanon to thank St. Sharbel and register the healing miracle at the Monastery of St. Maron, where St. Sharbel lived and is buried. Hers was the 120th miracle to be registered at that point for 2016.

Although the St. Sharbel Mass is less than 50 years old, Father Harb said the tradition of the Maronite Mass in Louisiana dates to the late 1800s. 

“Unfortunately, for the longest time we did not have the priests to send or because of the (widespread distances) of the population it did not make sense,” Father Harb said.

When the Mass began, visiting priests were brought in from Boston to celebrate. Father Jeff Bayhi, currently pastor at St. John the Baptist Church in Zachary, began to celebrate the Mass.

Father Harb said the Eastern Rite Mass dates to apostolic times, and that before the New Testament was written St. Paul was already preaching and celebrating liturgy. 

“We still access those liturgical traditions, have access to something that is older than the Scriptures,” he said. 

Father Harb said Vatican II discussed how Catholics have an obligation to learn about various rites of the Mass because it’s a part of the church.

“God is beyond our understanding, so if you try to describe the beauty of the earth in a single painting, you will fall short,” he said. “If you see different approaches, different paintings, you start to see God from different angles but still beyond our understanding. And so we can have a different experience.”

“You have four Gospels, and if you were to say I want to have one Gospel you are missing out part of the image of who God is and what Christ has done,” he added.

He said those attending the Mass will see some differences, including a language that is more poetic. Father Alex Harb said the Maronite Mass uses scriptural images comparing how the cross fulfilled the Old Testament.

Incense is also used and the sign of peace is unique, with Father Harb saying it comes from God to the altar, from the priest, from the servers, from the person next to you in church.

“We are receiving the peace from God,” he said.

The closing prayer is also different, as the priest says “Remain in peace, altar of God. I know not if I will be able to return to you to offer another sacrifice.”

Father Harb said those words honor the poverty and persecution the Maronite order has suffered through the years.

Dinner will follow Mass and at 3:30 p.m. Bishop Emeritus Jacobs will deliver his address.