How Maya was cured from cancer at Saint Charbel's tomb (2018)

Maya Sami Francis, born in 1981, mother of three, emigrated from Lebanon to Pennsylvania, USA, where she now lives. In 2016, she was diagnosed with operable breast cancer. After the operation, Saint Charbel, whom she had prayed to fervently, appeared to her in a dream and told her she was cured. Two years later, unbearable lumbar and cervical pain, which no treatment could alleviate, brought her back to hospital, where she was found to have disseminated bone metastases in two vertebrae. She was offered an operation to relieve the pain, but that very night, Saint Charbel appeared to her once again and objected to the operation. She and her husband then took a flight to Lebanon: they landed at Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport and, in the middle of the night, they were taken to the tomb of the venerated saint, where Maya received the grace of a spontaneous and definitive cure.

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Reasons to believe:

Maya's healing took place at St Charbel Makhlouf's tomb on October 9, 2018, just as his canonisation (October 9, 1977 by Paul VI) was being commemorated.

Maya was paralysed and in a wheelchair, yet she managed to get up, to everyone's amazement, and to move close to the vision of Saint Charbel whom she could see, to go kneel at his side.

The eyewitnesses to Maya's healing at the saint's tomb are varied: her husband, her family and Father Luis Matar (recorder of all Saint Charbel's miracles around the world).

After this event, Maya's cancer could no longer be detected: she had been cured on the spot, in a complete and definitive manner, just as the saint had told her in his vision.

Maya's medical file was documented over a period of two years: by the Pennsylvania hospital attesting to the seriousness of her illness, and by the Tripoli hospital confirming her recovery. The exchanges between the hospitals led the medical profession to conclude that a "scientifically inexplicable cure" had taken place.

Summary:

In 2016, Maya Sami Francis was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was removed in a specialist hospital in Pennsylvania. During her convalescence she prayed fervently to Saint Charbel Charbel Makhlouf, the great Lebanese saint canonised in 1977 by Pope Paul VI in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

During his lifetime, Saint Charbel was said to be “drunk with God”, first in his monastic life, then in his eremitical life in the small isolated hermitage of Saints-Peter-and-Paul, a stone's throw from the monastery of Saint-Maron in Annaya, where, in silence, isolation and prayer, he remained for twenty-three years, his heart entirely devoted to the love of Christ, until his death on December 24, 1898, during the Christmas vigil.

Maya fervently turned to the intercession of Saint Charbel to be healed. One night, the saint appeared to her in a dream. She recognised him by his black hood, downcast eyes and white beard. He told her that she was cured! Apart from her family in the United States, Maya had not told a single member of her Lebanese family back home about the saint's intervention or the grace she had received. She was waiting to return to Lebanon to thank him in Annaya, at his tomb where he is venerated. However, the cervical and lumbar pain persisted, and neither anti-inflammatory drugs nor physiotherapy treatments calmed it, so that in September 2018 she was rushed to the hospital after paralysis set in.

The verdict fell: metastases had spread to the bone and two vertebrae had been severely damaged and needed to be replaced with metal prostheses, which meant an operation had to be scheduled as a matter of urgency. This time, she decided to inform her Lebanese family, and her nephew Charbel Francis offered to support her in her distress through prayer. While on the phone, they invoked Saint Charbel every day, when he suddenly appeared in front of her: "I'm with you and I'm asking you not to have the operation!"Maya and her nephew, to whom she told the story live, decided to obey St Charbel. She and her husband booked two seats on the first flight to Beirut, against the advice of the medical profession in Pennsylvania, and in particular the surgeon, who was convinced that she would never make it to Lebanon, as such a journey would be life-threatening.

On October 8, they took off from Harrisburg on a plane with fifty other pilgrims going to celebrate the anniversary of Brother Charbel's canonisation at the Annaya monastery in 1977. Maya's condition worsened during this exhausting journey, during which everyone prayed with her and for her. On the tarmac at Rafic Hariri airport in Beirut, as they were sad to say goodbye, one of the pilgrims invited the couple to ride with them in their coach, specially hired to take the group directly to Annaya, where they had booked accommodations.

When they arrived at around midnight in front of the monastery, all the doors were locked. Maya, exhausted and inert in her wheelchair, asked that her nephew be contacted as soon as possible so that he could telephone Father Luis Matar. Her nephew woke up the archivist, who didn't hesitate for a second, put on his cassock, took some incense and holy oil with him, and joined up Maya and her friends, to pray at the foot of the statue of Saint Charbel.

Just as Father Luis was about to bless this woman in a wheelchair, whom he did not know, Saint Charbel, silent and contemplative, appeared to Maya for the third time. She got up to go towards him, stumbled, walked, knelt down, moved her arms and legs without difficulty and, under the astonished gaze of her pilgrim friends and her family who had come in the middle of the night, sang and danced her happiness and joy. She had been cured!

The monastery joyfully celebrated this miracle, and monks and pilgrims stayed up late into the night. This spectacular healing, on the anniversary of the canonisation of the hermit Charbel, is remembered by all as a favour granted by the Lord to his saint, for whom he has a special tenderness. This is why all the Lebanese, regardless of their religious affiliation, turn to him in their trials. The story of this cure is preserved in the monastery's archives (recorded as the 31 st miracle of the year 2018). It includes the file provided by Dr David Wahbé who, at the hospital in Tripoli (capital of the governorate of the North, Lebanon), performed the check-ups after Maya's miraculous cure. The metastases have disappeared and both vertebrae are intact. Exchanges of files between Pennsylvania and Tripoli concluded on both sides that there had been a "scientifically inexplicable cure".

Jean-Claude and Geneviève Antakli, authors and biologists

Beyond reasons to believe:

Saint Charbel is a miracle-working saint. The astronomical number of cures and graces - tens of thousands of miracles worldwide - obtained by this world-famous patron saint of Lebanon is simply amazing. These have been reported on every continent where the Lebanese diaspora is present. Fervent Lebanese expatriates have often set up places of prayer to venerate this exceptional saint, a priest and hermit monk of the Maronite Church.

His apparitions, whether in a dream or in reality, are described by those who receive them with the same precise details that make them immediately identifiable. Some of them have even happened to people who do not know him. In these cases, relatives invoke the saint's intercession on their behalf, to provide physical relief or spiritual support for their loved ones. This network of mystical relationships between a supernatural world and our own transcends race and religion.

Going further:

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel Paperback by Saint Charbel (Author), Hanna Skandar (Author), Angelico Press (February 15, 2019)

More information:

Lamp of Eternal Lights: The Biography of Saint Charbel Makhlouf (1828-1898) by Elias Turk, Independently published (November 1, 2016)
CNA article "The Lebanese saint who unites Christians and Muslims" (July 2023)
The 1000 Reasons to Believe article on Saint Charbel
Charbel.org Saint Charbel's miracles