When Pope Leo XIV visits the Saint Maroun Monastery – the sanctuary of Saint Charbel – in Lebanon's mountainous village of Annaya on Monday, he will be making history.
No sitting Pope has ever visited the shrine of Lebanon's most revered saint. Among the first people to receive him will be Father Louis Matar, the caretaker of the monastery.
Preparations are under way to receive Pope Leo at the holy sites he's set to visit. Roads have been repaved, and banners bearing the pope's image, accompanied by the slogan “Lebanon wants peace”, have appeared across the mountains and elsewhere.
“The roads must be worthy of a place the Pope himself will visit,” said Father Louis from his wood-panelled office in the monastery. It is a room adorned with photos of Saint Charbel looking down upon his flock, his heavily white bearded face covered with a dark hood.
“When a Pope visits a monastery, it means the monastery is of global significance.”
Saint Charbel, a hermit who died in 1898 and is entombed at the monastery, is revered for his piety and his miracles of healing. Since his death in 1898, Annaya has become one of Lebanon’s most important pilgrimage destinations for those seeking his blessing.
Pope Leo's visit to Lebanon comes as the country endures one of its darkest chapters: still reeling from war, plagued by daily Israeli attacks, paralysed by a deep-seated economic crisis and institutional failure, and fractured by political and societal divisions. Several points in the country's south – the region where Jesus is said to have conducted his earliest miracles – remain under Israeli occupation.
Yet Pope Leo has brushed aside concerns and insisted the visit will go ahead.
“A doctor visits when the patient is critically ill,” said Father Louis. “Our people are sick, our nation is sick. We're drowning in darkness. People need hope. The Pope's visit gives hope – more than hope. He reminds us of Jesus. He reminds us of faith.”
The Pope lands in Beirut on Sunday afternoon, a day largely dedicated to meetings with Lebanon’s political leadership.
But Monday's visits to Lebanon's Maronite heartland will be the centrepiece of his visit for Lebanon's more than one million Maronite Christians. From Saint Charbel’s monastery, Pope Leo will travel to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa to meet fellow bishops and priests as well as pastoral workers.
His visit means that the famed Teleferique du Liban – the cable car that transports people from the coast in Jounieh to Harissa – will be closed throughout the trip.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa is another of the country's most famous pilgrimage sites, a giant bronze 8.5-metre statue of the Virgin Mary looking out towards Beirut from the Lebanese mountains. It is not a place that gathers only Christians, but Muslims too.
Later, after a visit to the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerke, he will address Lebanese youth in the square near the patriarchal seat.
A large tent sits in Beirut's Martyrs' Square where Pope Leo will hold an Ecumenical and interreligious meeting, while the downtown of the Lebanese capital will gradually be shut down ahead of his Tuesday Mass at the waterfront.
“It is our greatest joy that the Pope would visit our monastery,” says Father Louis.
The Annaya monastery, which is the burial place of Saint Charbel, is a regular pilgrimage site for visitors of all faiths and nationalities – not just Lebanon's Maronites. Father Louis says that a recent annual census found that 4.5 million visitors came to the monastery, but only 1.2 million received communion, highlighting the interreligious importance of the site.
Father Louis is also charged with authenticating Saint Charbel's miracles. He says 29,000 miracles have been authenticated.
Pope Leo's predecessor, Francis, had been supposed to visit Lebanon before his death, but the country's precarious security situation and Pope Francis's health put an end to that.
Father Louis says that Saint Charbel was important to Pope Francis, who had asked a subordinate to bring a relic of him. Ahead of surgery, it is said that Pope Francis prayed with it. Pope John Paul ll, who came to Lebanon in 1997, wanted to visit Annaya but was unable to because of his schedule. He did have time, however, to visit Harissa.
According to religious tradition, Saint Charbel was buried in a room sealed with stone. Four months later, light began to emanate from the tomb and his body “began to perspire blood and water,” says Father Louis.
“His body looked alive,” he added. Saint Charbel's sweat was said to heal people.
To a country experiencing heightened tension and fear of yet another impending Israeli war, Pope Leo's visit is a welcome relief.
“The Pope is coming at a time when maybe there's going to be another war,” said Sana, who only gave her first name because her husband is in the military.
“I feel like Lebanon is always forgotten by the outside world,” stated Lisa, a visiting American tourist who was at the monastery in Annaya with her Lebanese husband.
Her husband, Charbel, concurred. “They think Lebanon is just a part of the Middle East. But Lebanon is one of the most important. Because Jesus Christ did most of his miracles in south Lebanon.”
Perhaps most famously, in his first miracle, Jesus was said to have turned water into wine in Qana – although whether it took place in the south Lebanese town is disputed.
Pope Leo's three-day visit will not include southern Lebanon, which is coming under Israeli attacks daily and where much of the area lies in ruins.
“It's a very insecure time for him to come, so it's pretty significant that he's choosing to come to Lebanon. He's brave. And we count on him, for keeping peace – and hope,” said Sana.
