Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - Nimatullah Al-Hardini, a Lebanese Maronite monk, was born in 1808 at Hardin, in the north of Lebanon. At the baptismal font he receives the name of Youssef. He belonged to a Maronite family with six children. His mother and father educated their children to a such lively devotion to God and the Church, that four embraced the monastic or priestly life: Tanios became a parish priest; Eliseo joined the Lebanese Maronite Order as a hermit; Msihieh embraced the cloistered life and Nimatullah in 1828 entered the Lebanese Maronite Order. While still a boy he met Lebanese Maronite monks at St Anthony’s Monastery at Houb where he engaged in his first studies and he was attracted to their monastic way of life.
After his studies at the monastery he returned to live with his maternal grandfather, Youssef Raad, parish priest of the village of Tannourin. Through the example of his grandfather he came to love the priesthood and at the age of 20 entered the Lebanese Maronite Order. He was sent to St Anthony’s monastery at Qozhaya for two years of probation with other candidates to the monastic life. During the novitiate he was initiated in community prayer and manual work, according to the Constitutions of the Order. Al-Hardini devoted all his free time, even time for rest, to visits to the Blessed Sacrament. They would find him in church, on his knees, his hands raised to form a cross, immobile, his eyes set on the Tabernacle.
After making his monastic profession on 14 November 1830, he was sent to the Monastery of Saints Cyprian Justina at Kfifan to study philosophy and theology. During that time he fell ill because of his ascetic practices and intense application to his studies. To spare him the enormous fatigue of work in the fields his superior sent him to the sewing room and he became the community’s tailor.
When he had completed his studies in philosophy and theology he was ordained a priest and appointed Director of the Scholasticate and Professor. His day was usually divided in two parts: the first half was dedicated to preparing for the celebration of the Eucharist and the second half to giving thanks. This contemplative dimension was lived in the practical reality of love of neighbour and love of culture.
Al-Hardini suffered with his people during the two civil wars in 1840 and 1845 which prepared the blood events of 1860, when many monasteries were torched, many churches devastated and many Maronite Christians were massacred. In this situation prayer became the expression of his efforts to remain faithful to God ever present and who never ceases to love mankind. Al-Hardini prayed often to the Blessed Virgin Mary - his main source of strength- to intercede for Lebanon and for his Order. He prayed the Rosary every day and never tired of repeating the Name of Mary, invoking her day and night, fasting in her honour every Saturday and eve of her feast-days, he was especially devoted to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.
In 1845, thanks to his zeal for faultless observance of the monastic rules, he was appointed by the Holy See, Assistant General of the Order. This charge was confirmed in 1850 and in 1856. While exercising the charge in his Order he was always gentle in words and deeds. Although he lived with the other Assistants at Our Lady of Tamich monastery, he continued to go to Kfifan monastery to teach and to carry on with his work of bookbinding, exercised in a spirit of poverty, with special attention for liturgical manuscripts.
In December 1858, while at Kfifan, he fell ill with pneumonia caused by the glacial cold of that Winter. His condition deteriorated and he asked to be moved to a cell near the church from where he could hear the singing of the Divine Office. After ten days of agony he received the Anointing of the Sick holding in his hands an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He died on 14 December 1858, at the age of 50. His brother monks saw a bright light in his cell and smelled a perfume that remained for some days afterwards. His cause for Beatification was brought to Rome in Roma 1926, John Paul II proclaimed him Blessed on 10 May 1998. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/5/2004; Righe 46; Parole 662)
