Father Charbel was thirty-six years old when he went to see his Prior one day and said, "As a grace, Father, I ask you to forbid me to have any contact with the outside. I would rather not see anything anymore, nor hear anything anymore, except for God's voice." Father Albani answered, "Contemplation is something which pleases the Lord, but one must not forget others." "I think only of others, Father. I have asked God that the force of my prayers not serve myself, but my neighbor."
It was obvious to Father Charbel that the normal place for the monk was in his Monastery. The goal of the Order, however, and its traditions bound the Lebanese monk to the work of the apostolate. While residing in monasteries, these monks served around two hundred and twenty parishes in Lebanon alone.
Father Charbel only wanted to accomplish God's will. "What must I do, Father?" he asked. "You will go visit the sick and the dying. You will hear their Confessions, bring them Holy Communion, bring the good word to the very depths of the badlands for all, and in all kinds of weather. In that way you will try to heal bodies. You have a few notions of medicine . . ." The priest bowed down before his Superior's will. He was already being called upon from all sides and people were expecting him. "Lord," implored Charbel, "give me the strength of persuasion which will permit me to bring the lost sheep back to Thee." And in hearing his prayer, the Lord made use of him and sent him all who were doubting, suffering or seeking out their way. Charbel did not speak a dogmatic language to them. He could have been a great preacher, and his eloquence would have been intuitive, original and powerful, but he would no longer have been the humble monk. In coming from too high up, his voice would not have reached down to those who were to hear him. His words were full of simplicity and inspired by God, and they struck like lightning and heated like the noonday sun. He was not a lofty person or a Saint placed upon a pedestal. The peasants knew how hard he worked for them, holding the plow, pruning the vine or working twelve hours a day like the mason who transports his load of stone. In other words, he was a man and practically a man like other men, such as Christ appeared-----humble and sorrowful like the poorest of His sons.
