One-of-a-kind Saint Sharbel spiritual center opens in Pittsburgh
Located in Pittsburgh’s suburban neighborhood of Beechview sits a unique Catholic spiritual center that is the only one of its kind in the world, according to the bishop who opened it last month.
“Our whole eparchy has always wanted a center for prayer and spirituality,” Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Eparchy of St. Maron of Brooklyn said in an interview with CNA.
The Saint Sharbel Spiritual Life Center is “the only one of its kind in the world,” Mansour said, explaining that the institution offers retreats, courses on spirituality, daily sacraments, Eucharistic adoration, Scripture studies, prayer, reading, and several other opportunities for growth.
The $1.25 million center, which opened on Dec. 8, has a mission to help each person grow in holiness according to the example given by Christ and “the great mystics of the Church” as well as “to cultivate a deeper devotion to Christ in the holy Eucharist through the example of St. Sharbel,” according to a press release from the center.
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.
St. Sharbel, canonized in 1954, was a Lebanese Maronite priest and hermit who lived between 1828 and 1898. Although very 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’s relic that is housed in the center is the same first-class relic associated with the healing of Dafne Gutierrez, a Phoenix woman who was completely blind but was healed after venerating it in 2016.