#st. rafka

[maronitesoul]

The room of St. Rafqa in St. Simon Monastery, in Ayto.

The picture of St. Rafqa with the sisters was taken in 1896.

[maronitesoul]

The relics of Saint Rafka are currently visiting the Maronite Parishes in the USA between Mid-October and Mid-November, on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of her death (1914-2014).

The relics are bones from her jaw, and they have never been exposed before. The relics have been visiting parishes in Lebanon, since the 23rd of March 2014.

Star of the East Radio, the first maronite radio in the USA, is covering the visits. For more info: https://www.facebook.com/StarOfTheEastRadio

[acatholicvibe]

The Daily Gospel According to the Maronite Calendar

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Lazarus Saturday

Feast of St. Rafka

Saint of the day : St. Rafka

  Second Letter to the Corinthians 1:1-7.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.

Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10:38-42.

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’

But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;

there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ 

[maronitesoul]

Saint Rafqa Movie (with english sub)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

Part 18

[maronitesoul]

NOVENA OF SAINT RAFQA

DAY FOUR

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 Oh ! Jesus Christ my God , You tested the child Rafqa by taking her mother, then, You gave her Virgin Mary, Your mother, as a substitute.

 Oh! Our Lord, keep Saint Rafqa as a Holy yeast amongst the Christian Families and an example for every sufferer, handicapped and invalid; for every blind, sick and sad; for every child and orphan, so that they can carry your cross with love and joy.

 Oh! Our Lord, answer my prayer and grant me, through the intercession of Saint Rafqa, the grace that I am asking for (…) and I shall praise you with Her, forever. Amen.

 (Our Father, Hail Mary, The Glory).

PRAYER

 We ask You, Saint Rafqa, to spread real joy in our world which is suffering; to comfort sad people and make them happy and caring; to teach us to pray with faith in Jesus Christ and to live our life peacefully.

 Medicine was incapable of curing you, so You cured sick people by supporting pain and sharing with Jesus Christ the Mystery of Redemption.

 We ask You to wipe off the tears; to cure sick people; to fill people’s hearts with joy and love; to make us follow Your steps and virtues in order to glorify, with You the Virgin Mary, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.

[maronitesoul]

NOVENA OF SAINT RAFQA

DAY THREE

 In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 Oh! Holy Spirit, who made Saint Rafqa an example for us in carrying the cross, when she repeated with St Paul: “ I only know Jesus crucified”. So, she became a new messenger of suffering humanity. Enable us to follow her example with faith, hope and charity.

 Oh! Wise Spirit, Grant mr through Saint Rafqa’s intercession the grace that I am asking in the novena (…) , according to your Holly Will and I shall glorify You along with the Father and the Son , forever. Amen.

 (Our Father, Hail Mary, The Glory).

PRAYER

 We ask You, Saint Rafqa, to spread real joy in our world which is suffering; to comfort sad people and make them happy and caring; to teach us to pray with faith in Jesus Christ and to live our life peacefully.

 Medicine was incapable of curing you, so You cured sick people by supporting pain and sharing with Jesus Christ the Mystery of Redemption.

 We ask You to wipe off the tears; to cure sick people; to fill people’s hearts with joy and love; to make us follow Your steps and virtues in order to glorify, with You the Virgin Mary, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.

[maronitesoul]

Saint Rafqa's Biography

Birth and Youth

Born in 1832, Saint Rafqa was baptised as Boutrossieh (Pierina, Pierrette or Petronila in French).

When Rafqa was 14 years old her stepmother wanted her to marry her brother, and her maternal aunt wanted her to marry her son. Rafqa did not want to marry either of the men and this caused a great deal of discord in her family. After overhearing her stepmother and aunt exchange insults, Rafqa asked God to help her deal with the problem. She then decided to become a nun and went straight to the convent of Our Lady of Liberation at Bikfaya.

This decision was not just to escape the problem of her marriage but a response to a true calling. As Rafqa recounts, “When I entered the Church I felt immense joy, inner relief and, looking at the image of the Blessed Virgin, I felt as if a voice had come from it and penetrated the most intimate part of my conscience. It said to me: You will be a nun.”

Rafqa’s father and stepmother did try to take her back home but she did not want to go. “I asked the mistress of novices to excuse me from seeing them and she agreed. They returned home, saddened, and since then I never saw them again…”

Father Joseph Gemayel and his family founded a new religious institute for women that provided them with full- time education as well as religious instruction. Rafqa’s name, Pierina, was listed last among the first four aspirants of “Daughters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception” (“Mariamettes”, in French) in Father Gemayel’s notebook dated January 1, 1853. She was 21.

Convent years

On February 9, 1855, the Feast of St. Maron, Rafqa commenced her novitiate in Ghazir convent and chose the name Anissa (Agnes). She took her first vows in 1856 that were renewable every year. She was first “in charge of the kitchen and was studying in preparation for teaching the rudiments of culture … She was placed in charge of the workers and had the task of giving them religious instruction in a spinning mill in Scerdanieh, where she remained for two months.” After her final vows, Rafqa was sent to the Jesuit founded Eastern seminary of Ghazir .

In 1860 she went to Deir-el-Qamar, in Mount Lebanon - Shouf Lebanon. She recounted, “That year there were the well known battles and bloody massacres.” In less than two months the Druze sect, goaded by the Turks, killed 7,771 people and destroyed 360 villages, 560 churches, 28 schools, and 42 convents. Blessed Rafqa saved one child’s life by hiding him in her skirt as he was being chased by some soldiers.

Two years later, Rafqa was transferred to Gebail where she remained for one year before going to Ma'ad at the request of Antoun (Anthony) Issa, a local dignitary who was married but had no children. Rafqa lived in their home while teaching Christian doctrine and supervising religious practice. One of her students of six years described her as “always tranquil, serene, sensitive and smiling in her humility…she never raised her voice and…never used corporal punishment.”

In 1871, the “Mariamettes” religious institute dissolved. Blessed Rafqa decided to join the Baladita Order, the monastic order now named “The Lebanese Maronite Order of St. Anthony", founded in 1695 and told Antoun Issa of her decision. He asked her to stay on until the end of the year promising to leave her property and money but refused. Realizing her resolve, he offered to pay the dowry demanded by the Order for her.

That same night, Blessed Rafqa dreamed of three men. One with a white beard, one dressed like a soldier and the third was an old man. One of the men said to her, “’Become a nun in the Baladita Order.’ I woke up very happy … and went to Antoun Issa, bursting with joy … and I told him about my dream.” Antoun identified the men as St. Anthony of Qozhaia (St. Anthony Abbot) of whom the order was inspired, the soldier was St. George, to whom the church in Ma’ad was dedicated and the third could only be a Baladita monk. Rafqa decided to leave immediately for the monastery of St. Simon in Al-Qarn. Antoun gave her the money as promised as well as a letter of recommendation to the archbishop.

On July 12, 1871 Rafqa began her novitiate into the new monastery and then on August 25, 1873, she “professed her perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the spirit of the strict Rule of the Baladita Order.” Her new name was that of her mother’s, Rafqa, (Rebecca), the name of Abraham’s great granddaughter and wife of his son Isaac. Rafqa remained in the monastery until 1897.

Life with pain

In 1885 Rafqa decided not to join the nuns for a walk around the monastery. In her autobiographical account she wrote, “It was the first Sunday of the Rosary. I did not accompany them. Before leaving each of the nuns came and said to me, ‘Pray for me sister.’ There were some who asked me to say seven decades of the Rosary … I went to the Church and started to pray. Seeing that I was in good health and that I had never been sick in my life, I prayed to God in this way, ‘Why, O my God, have you distance yourself from me and have abandoned me. You have never visited me with sickness! Have you perhaps abandoned me?’”

Blessed Rafqa continued in her account to her superior, the next night after the prayer “At the moment of sleeping I felt a most violent pain spreading above my eyes to the point that I reached the state you see me in, blind and paralyzed, and as I myself had asked for sickness I could not allow myself to complain or murmur.”

“The symbolic daughter of a country which for over a decade has been in the world headlines because of its suffering,” Blessed Rafqa suffered many years because of her desire to share in the passion of Jesus Christ.

One sister accompanied Rafqa to Tripoli for a medical visit for her eyes. “The doctor explored, poking one eye, then the other. Blood gushed out and… [Rafqa] remained calm and smiling, repeating, ‘In communion with your suffering, Jesus!’…Two or three days later, the sore became inflamed and for about a month there was a copious discharge of pus.”

For two years, Blessed Rafqa suffered. She went to several doctors who all agreed that there was nothing they could do. Upon the persuasion of Father Estefan, Blessed Rafqa consulted an American doctor who strongly suggested that the eye be removed. Estefan recalls, “Before the operation I asked the doctor to anesthetize the eye so that Rafqa would not feel any pain but she refused. The doctor made her sit down and pushed a long scalpel … into her eye … the eye popped out and fell on the ground, palpitating slightly … Rafqa didn’t complain … but only said, ‘in communion with Christ’s Passion.’” The pain was then all concentrated to her left eye and nothing could be done.

Gradually her left eye shrunk and sunk into the socket and Rafqa became blind. For about thirty years both sockets hemorrhaged two to three times a week. She also suffered from frequent nosebleeds. “Her head, her brow, her eyes, her nose were as if they were being pierced by a red hot needle. Rafqa did not let this pain isolate her from the community. She continued to spin wool and cotton and knitted stockings for the other sisters; she participated in choral prayer.

Due to the harsh winters at the monastery of St. Simon, Rafqa was allowed to spend the coldest months on the Lebanese coast as a guest of the Sisters of Charity and then of the residence of the Maronite Order. Unable to observe the Rule at these locales, Blessed Rafqa asked to be taken to the monastery of St. Elias at El Rass, which belonged to her order.

In 1897, Blessed Rafqa, out of obedience, was able to permanently move to the monastery St. Joseph of Gerbata in Ma’ad along with Sister Ursula, where she remained for the last 17 years of her life. It was here that her suffering increased.

In 1907, she confided to Sister Ursula that she felt a pain in her legs, “as if someone were sticking lances in them and pain in my toes as if they were being pulled off.” This began the long list of sufferings and pains Blessed Rafqa withstood for the last seven years of her life.

Based on direct evidence and on the autopsy of Rafqa’s remains in 1927, she became paralyzed due to “the progressive disarticulation of her bones. She kept intact only her brain, her tongue, her ears and her wrist and finger joints while the pain continued in her head, her devastated eye sockets and her nosebleeds … completely immobile her lower jaw touched her benumbed knee.”

Even in this state, Blessed Rafqa was able to crawl to the chapel on the feast of Corpus Christi to the amazement of all the sisters. When asked about this, Blessed Rafqa replied, “I don’t know. I asked God to help me and suddenly I felt myself slipping from the bed with my legs hanging down; I fell on the floor and crawled to the chapel.”

On a separate occasion, when asked by her superior if she would like to see, Blessed Rafqa responded, “I would like to see for at least an hour, to be able to look at you.” In an instant the superior could see Rafqa smile and suddenly said, “Look, I can see now.” Not believing her, Sister Ursula put her to the test asking her to identify several objects. Shortly thereafter, Rafqa fell into a deep sleep for about two hours. Sister Ursula became worried and tried repeatedly to awaken her. Upon waking, Rafqa explained that she had entered a large, beautifully decorated building with baths full of water and people crowding to enter them; she went with them. Sister Ursula asked her why she came back; why she didn’t continue to walk. Blessed Rafqa explained, “You called me, and I came.”

Blessed Rafqa’s obedience and love for her superior is quite evident in this account. For a nun, the superior, “as the Rule puts it, represents Christ and is owed respect, obedience and love. Despite her condition, Rafqa did nothing without the Superior’s permission.”

Before dying, Blessed Rafqa told of her life to Sister Ursula, superior of the monastery in which she died, “There is nothing important in my life that is worthy of being recorded … my mother died when I was seven years old. After her death my father married for a second time.”

Three days before her death, Rafqa said, “I am not afraid of death which I have waited for a long time. God will let me live through my death.” Then on March 23, 1914, four minutes after receiving final absolution and the plenary indulgence, she died.

Beatification and canonization

On June 9, 1984, the eve of Pentecost, in the presence of the Holy Father John Paul II, the decree approving the miracle of Elizabeth Ennakl who was completely cured of uterine cancer in 1938 at the tomb of Rafka, was promulgated.

On November 16, 1985 Pope John Paul II declared her a Blessed and on June 10, 2001 he elevated her to the rank of Saint at a solemn ceremony in the Vatican.

Biography on Vatican.va