3/23 - St. Rebecca

Welcome to the Saint of the Day Podcast, a service of good Catholic and the Catholic

Company.

Join us each day as we share the story of a unique saint in three minutes or less.

Today's saint is Saint Raphca.

Saint Raphca, which is Arabic for Rebecca, was born in 1832 to 1914 in Himlaya, a Maranag

village in the Lebanese Mountains.

She was an only child, and her mother died when she was seven.

After her father's remarriage, there was much family discord as to who Raphca should

marry.

Not wanting to wed any of the men in question, she turned to God and entered religious life

at the age of 21.

She had a great devotion to the blessed Virgin Mary when she learned from her mother.

She studied and served as a teacher for many years, but after witnessing and surviving

a massacre of Christians, she decided at the age of 39 to become a cloistered contemplative

non-living under a strict rule in a monastery.

Here Raphca prayed earnestly that she might share in the sufferings of Christ.

Her prayers were heard almost immediately.

She became blind and paralyzed, and over the course of 30 years, she struggled with deteriorating

health and incredible pain.

All of her sufferings she united to the sufferings of Christ without complaint.

Under obedience to her superior, she worked on an autobiography near the end of her life.

She died at the age of 82, and her grave is credited with many miracles.

St. Raphca is a Catholic Maranite saint, canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2001.

She is the patron of sick people, bodily ills, and loss of parents.

Her feast day is March 23rd.

Say a prayer for all those who have lost their parents.

St. Raphca, pray for us.

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