Saint Rafqa

From Maronite History

Sister Rafqa (Rebecca) EI-Choboq EI Rayes, a Maronite Catholic Lebanese nun, was beatified as Blessed Rafqa in 1985 and canonised as Saint Rafqa on 10 June 2001, in both instances by His Holiness Pope John Paul II.

In 1885, at the age of 53, Sr Rafqa’s wish and repeated prayers had finally been answered the desire to participate in the sufferings of Christ. She began to suffer numerous and extreme violent pains for the remaining 29 years of her life. She is a striking example for us of how suffering can be lived with joy but only through total submission to God. She is “The Little Flower of Lebanon” for hope and intercession to God for divine assistance. The miracles which are now recorded and verified by the Vatican are a testament to her help.

Saint Rafqa was born on 29 June 1832 in Himlaya, a Maronite village in the Lebanese mountains near Bikfaya. Her baptismal name was Boutrosiya (pronounced in Arabic as the feminine of Peter) having been born on the feast day of St Peter. She was an only child of her father Mrad EI Rayes and her mother Rafqa Gemayel. Her mother died when she was 7 years old and her father later re-married. Civil war in the 1840’s in Lebanon caused economic hardship. To help her father, Boutrosiya became a maid for three years in the home of Assad and Helena EI-Badaui, both in Baabda, Lebanon, and Damascus, Syria. According to the EI Badaui family she was a “model of purity”. She was devoted to the Most Holy Virgin and prayed morning and night having learnt the devotion from the sweet heart of her maternal mother. On her 21st birthday she entered the convent of the Mariamite Sisters in Bikfaya. Shortly thereafter her father and stepmother attempted to take her back home but she refused. Her father never saw her again. After one year of postulancy, Boutrosiya became a novice on St Maroun’s feast day, 9 February 1855. She pronounced her religious vows in 1856 in Ghazir. For 7 years she performed kitchen work during the day and studied Arabic, calligraphy and mathematics at night. For the next 11 years she taught schoolgirls in Deir-EI-Qamar, Jbeil (Byblos) and Ma’ad. During the time of the massacres of the Christians in the Chouf Mountains she saved a young boy by hiding him in her gown (habit) and later herself hid with other Sisters in a stable. Sr Boutrosiya was deeply affected by the massacres. In 1871 at the age of 39 she went to the monastery of St Simon in the village of Aitu near Ehden to become a cloistered nun rather than a teaching nun. It was at that time she adopted her name in religion as the name of her mother Rafqa. At the age of 41 after 2 years’ novitiate, Sr Rafqa made her solemn vows in 1873 dedicating her remaining years on earth to a life of asceticism and contemplation. On the first Sunday of October in 1885 at the age of 53, on the feast of the Holy Rosary, Sr Rafqa made the following prayer to God: “0 my God, why are you distant from me and have abandoned me? You don’t visit me with sickness. Have you perhaps abandoned me?” She desired to share in the sufferings of Christ and His crucifixion. That same night she felt a violent pain to her head which spread to her eyes. No doctor could alleviate her sufferings. One American doctor removed her eye without anaesthetic. She calmly said to the doctor: “I am in communion with the Passion of Christ. May God preserve your hands, Doctor. May God repay you.” Enduring immense suffering, she became totally blind shortly thereafter.

In 1897, at the age of 65, Sr Rafqa and five other nuns transferred to a new convent of Mar Youssef of Jrapta (St Joseph) in the Batrun region. Her requests for suffering continued.

Gradually she lost weight and paralysis spread to her whole body with complete dysfunction to all joints. The whole time she never complained and thanked God for the pains and His holy will. In a 1981 medical report based on the evidence presented in the Canonical Process, three specialists diagnosed the most likely cause as tuberculosis with ocular localisation and multiple bony excrescences. This disease causes the most unbearable pain. Many of the details outlined above come from the fact that Sr Rafqa under obedience to her superior Sr Doumit told her life story which she previously refused because she was so humble. After asking for absolution and the plenary indulgence, Sr Rafqa died on 23 March 1914 at the age of 82. She suffered intolerable pain for 29 years. On one occasion Mother Superior asked Sr Rafqa whether she wished she could see. Rafqa stated that she would like to have vision just for an hour to see Mother Superior. At that moment Rafqa saw, and because of her Superior’s doubt Rafqa miraculously described in detail the items and colours in the room. On another occasion, on the feast of Corpus Christi, Sr Rafqa, blind and paralysed, left the bed and dragged herself alone to the chapel to join the other nuns for the adoration, much to their disbelief. The same phenomenon happened over Rafqa’s tomb as happened over that of St Charbel immediately following his burial in 1898. A number of persons from neighbouring villages witnessed a splendid bright light coming from the tomb. Also, four days after Rafqa’s death, Mother Superior, Sr Doumit, was instantly cured of a large cyst in her throat which for 8 years had even made it difficult for her to drink any fluid. Whilst asleep Mother Superior heard a knock on the door and a voice say, “Take dirt from the grave of Rafqa and put it on your throat.” The next morning Sr Doumit proceeded to the grave of Rafqa and took a handful of dirt, mixed it with water and placed it on the cyst. She then felt her throat and instantly found no trace of the cyst. Since then numerous persons who have eaten the dirt from around her grave have been miraculously cured. Between 1926 and 1952, the number of miracles and graces obtained through the intercession of Rafqa numbered 2,689, and are recorded in detail with medical evidence in six volumes kept at the convent in Jrapta. Sr Rafqa’s beatification took place in 1985, and her canonisation in Rome by the Holy Father John Paul II in 2001. The feast day of St Rafqa is celebrated on 23 March. On this day especially every year the Maronite Catholic Church honours her and seeks her intercession in our lives.

Sources

• Maronite, The Maronite Heritage.