In Pittsburgh’s suburban neighborhood of Beechview sits a unique Catholic spiritual center focused on a saint known for miracles whose feast is celebrated July 24 in the Latin rite and the third Sunday of July in the Maronite rite.
The Saint Sharbel Spiritual Life Center is “the only one of its kind in the world,” Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn said in an interview with EWTN News when it opened on Dec. 8, 2023. (Its official opening date was April 13, 2024.)
St. Sharbel, canonized in 1954, was a Lebanese Maronite priest and hermit who lived between 1828 and 1898. Although few words are recorded from his life and he lived in solitude, he is the patron saint of Lebanon and is famous for his miraculous healing intercession.
The Saint Sharbel Spiritual Life Center offers retreats, courses on spirituality, daily sacraments, Eucharistic adoration, Scripture studies, prayer, reading, and several other opportunities for growth.
Dr. Anne Borik, a Catholic medical doctor and founder of the worldwide prayer group the Saint Sharbel Global Prayer Net, is director of the center. According to the center’s website, Borik was the lead physician who investigated the miraculous healing of the blind woman who fully regained her sight through the intercession of St. Sharbel in 2016 at St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church in Phoenix.
The center, which is adjacent to Our Lady of Victory Maronite Parish, also includes a library filled with more than 10,000 books on spirituality and a relic of St. Sharbel Makhlouf.
The saint’s relic that is housed in the center is the same first-class relic associated with the healing of Dafne Gutierrez, the Phoenix woman who was completely blind but healed after venerating the relic in 2016.
Mansour told EWTN News that the eparchy named the center after St. Sharbel “because people know and associate him mostly with miracles and with favors done and intercessions. But sometimes they don’t associate him with a deep and abiding spiritual life.”
“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,” he said.
Those visiting the 10,300-square-foot center can learn about St. Sharbel through books, periodicals, and videos, and can attend Mass, retreats, and workshops. The center also offers virtual programs.
In addition to its focus on St. Sharbel’s spirituality, the center also features both western and eastern saints, and has offered the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and a course in Syriac spirituality.
When it opened, the center was approved to build more than a dozen overnight housing units on the property so that retreatants can stay for a prolonged period of time. The center welcomes funding to continue to realize its mission and grow its programs.
This story was first published on July 25, 2024, and has been updated.
