Charbel's friends

SAINT CHARBEL'S MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

From the moment St. Charbel entered the monastery, nobody, aside from his fellow-monks, saw his face, and no one took his photograph. On May 8, 1950, the hermit’s birthday, four Maronite missionaries came on pilgrimage to his tomb. Father George Webby, a Maronite priest from Scranton visiting Lebanon, took a photo of the four monks and the guard on duty, outside the wall of the monastery in which Saint Charbel had lived. Upon development of the picture, he saw the figure of a mysterious monk with a white beard standing next to the missionaries. Experts ruled out trick photography. The oldest monks, who had known Father Charbel, recognized him as the Saint himself, just as he had looked during the last years of his life. All subsequent portraits of the Saint were based upon this photo, including those displayed in St. Peter’s Square during his beatification and canonization.