In Spite of these austere practices, Father Charbel’s chief occupation was contemplation. He persevered with his orations and complete abandonment in the Divine presence so that nothing would interrupt the continuity of his adhesion to God. Is it possible for us to comprehend the driving force behind this passion in a soul which pulled it away from all worldly things?
“He already seemed to be living in eternity,” said Father Elias Mihrini. Was he actually aware that he lived?” He seemed to be so far and above what we would call “being alive”; time counted for nothing nor did anything that went on within that time. It was in January. The hermitage at Annaya seemed to glow under the thrusts of lightning and rumbling thunder. The Superior of Annaya, Father Nehme, narrates: “Father Charbel was on his knees in the Chapel, deep in meditation. In a flash, a bolt of lightning struck the building, opening a breach in the roof. It sliced off a part of the altar and struck out across the floor, setting fire to Charbel’s clothing! He didn’t seem to notice and went right on with his devotions. His two companions, father Makarios and Brother Nehmetalla, later fainted from the heavy sulfuric smell left behind by the lightning.
Without any doubt, Father Charbel had, by now, attained that state of mind that the mystics of the desert called hesychia, when the soul gains access to the silence of the heart and its thoughts, a sort of unawareness of self which purifies man when confronted with the immaterial.
(From “Saint Charbel” by Paul Daher)