Saint Rafqa is one of the most famous Lebanese saints.
Born in 1832 in Hemlaya, Rafqa Choboq Ar-Rayès had a difficult childhood marked by the loss of her mother. At age 18, she felt a deep calling to a life of piety, and it was finally in 1859 that Rafqa entered the Mariamettes convent in Bikfaya. She claimed to have heard a voice in the convent telling her, “You will become a nun!”
During a crisis that shook her congregation in 1871, Saint George, Saint Simeon, and Saint Anthony the Great—whom she saw in a dream—commanded her to join the Lebanese Maronite Order.
Sister Rafqa joined the Mar Sémaan al-Qarn Monastery and made her solemn vows on August 25, 1872.
In a state of extreme self-denial, she asked the Lord, in October 1885, to allow her to live out His Passion. For 29 years, the nun suffered severe pain, became blind and paralyzed, yet accepted these afflictions with joy.
She died on March 23, 1914, and was buried at the Mar Yousseph Monastery; miraculously, a light appeared over her grave for two consecutive nights.
Patroness of the sick and the afflicted, she was canonized in 2011 by Saint John Paul II and is celebrated on March 23.
