CV NEWS FEED // The first-ever spiritual center dedicated to St. Sharbel, a 19th-century Maronite Catholic monk, celebrated its grand opening in Pittsburgh this month.
The center, which is located just south of downtown Pittsburgh in Beechview, is connected to Our Lady of Victory Maronite Catholic Church. Though the center has been open since December 2023, on April 13 it celebrated its grand opening and dedication ceremony with the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s bishop, David Zubik.
The center, which spans over 10,000 square feet, has kitchens, classrooms, offices, and a chapel. According to the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, the center also has a library that contains over 10,000 books.
Director of the Saint Sharbel Spiritual Life Center Anne Borik told the Gazette, “Our goal is not just to be a retreat center but also a center where people come to go deeper in spirituality.”
The center also offers spiritual direction, catechists’ training, couples enrichment, parenting courses, and opportunities to learn about Eastern and Syriac Spirituality, among other resources.
The center will offer daily Mass at 11 a.m. in its chapel. The Gazette reported, “To signal unity within the Catholic Church, the religious services will be led by priests from the Maronite, Byzantine and Latin Catholic traditions.”
“Maronites are an ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia, with the largest concentration of followers in Lebanon,” according to the Gazette. “They are in communion with Roman Catholics but have some distinct rites. They take their name from Saint Maron, a hermit-priest who died in 410 AD and whose death sparked hundreds of monks to adopt his way of life.”
Thousands of miraculous healings are attributed to the intercession of St. Sharbel (sometimes also spelled Charbel), who lived from 1828 to 1898 in Lebanon. Sharbel was a hermit and priest who lived a life of notable asceticism, prayer, and holiness. His feast day is July 24.
In a January interview with Catholic News Agency, Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Eparchy (Eastern rite diocese) of St. Maron of Brooklyn said, “Our whole eparchy has always wanted a center for prayer and spirituality.”
Explaining why the center is named after St. Sharbel, Bishop Mansour said that the saint’s spiritual life offers a powerful example of holiness to emulate.
“And that’s why we want to focus, of course, on his miracles and his favors and his intercessions, but also developing our love for the Eucharist, our love for Our Lady, our love for the Church, our love for asceticism, our love for silence, our love for solitude that Sharbel not only embodied but lived by extraordinary, heroic example,” Bishop Mansour said.
