RAFQA in Himlaya (1832 - 1859)
“She is like the lily of Himlaya, grown as a bud in the land of Jrabta and will grow thanks to the sky.”
Saint Rafqa was born on June 29, 1832, to Saber El-Choboq Al Rayess and Rafqa Gemayel in Himlaya, a village of Northern Metn near Bikfaya. She was the only child of.
On July 7, 1832, she was baptized and named Boutroussieh. Her parents taught her to love God and pray daily. At the age of seven, she suffered her first great loss with the death of her mother.
In 1843, her father experienced financial difficulties and sent her to work in Damascus, as a domestic servant, in the house of Assaad Al-Badawi, a Lebanese national. Rafqa became a beautiful, pleasant, humorous young woman, pure and tender with a serene voice.
In 1847, she returned home and found that her father had remarried. His new wife wanted Rafqa to marry her brother. A conflict developed when her aunt tried also to arrange a marriage between her son and Rafqa.
Rafqa asked God to help her clear her thoughts. Thus, her decision, to devote her life to Jesus Christ and to become a nun was her greatest joy.
RAFQA in the Congregation of the Mariamettes (1859 - 1871)
Rafqa felt drawn to the religious life and went to the convent of Our Lady of Deliverance in Bikfaya to join the Mariamette Order, founded by Father Joseph Gemayel.
Upon entering the convent church, Rafqa felt deep inner joy. One look at the icon of Our Lady of Deliverance was enough to confirm God’s voice who told her to enter the religious life: "You will become a nun". The Mother Superior accepted Rafqa with no questions asked. Rafqa entered the convent, and refused to go back home when her father and his wife came to discourage her from becoming a nun.
Following her postulate, Rafqa wore the congregation’s robe of novice on the feast of St. Joseph on March 19, 1861. A year later and at the same date, she pronounced her temporary vows.
She was sent to the seminary in Ghazir to take charge of the kitchen services. Among the seminarians were Elias Howayek, who became a Patriarch, and Boutros El- Zoghbi, who became an Archbishop.
Rafqa studied in her free time Arabic, calligraphy and arithmetic and also helped aspiring girls to join her congregation.
In 1860, Rafqa was sent to Deir El Qamar to teach catechism. There, she witnessed the bloody clashes that occurred in Lebanon during that period. On one occasion, she risked her own life by hiding a child under her robe and saving him from death.
After a year in Deir El Qamar, Rafqa returned to Ghazir. In 1863, she was sent to teach in a school of her congregation in Byblos. One year later, she was transferred to the village of Maad. There, with another nun, she spent seven years establishing a new school for girls, this was made possible through the generosity of Mr. Antoun Issa.
RAFQA in the Lebanese Maronite Order
• In the Monastery of St. Simon El Qarn in Aito (1871 - 1897).
While living in Maad and following a crisis in her congregation, Rafqa asked God to guide her to the right decision. While praying at St. George Church, she heard the Lord’s voice telling her: "You will remain a nun." At same night, she saw in her dream, St. George, St. Simon the Stylite and St. Anthony the Great, the Father of monasticism. St. Anthony told her: "Join the Lebanese Maronite Order."
Mr. Antoun Issa helped her move from Maad to the Maronite Monastery of St. Simon El Qarn in Aito where she was immediately admitted in the Order. She wore the novice robe on July 12, 1871, and pronounced her solemn vows on August 25, 1872 and chose the name "Sister Rafqa," after her mother.
She spent 26 years in the monastery of St. Simon and was a role model to the other nuns in her observation of the rules and her devotion to prayer and silence. Her life was full of sacrifice and austerity.
On the first Sunday of October 1885, she entered the monastery's church and began to pray asking Jesus to permit her to experience some of the sufferings He endured during His Passion. Her prayer was immediately granted: “Unbearable pain began in her head and moved to her eyes.”
Her Superior insisted that she seeks medical attention and was sent to Beirut for treatment. Passing by St. John-Marcus Church in Byblos, her companions took her to an American doctor who was in the area. He ordered an immediate surgery on her right eye. St. Rafqa refused anesthesia. In the course of the surgery, the doctor mistakenly uprooted her eye which fell on the floor. Rafqa did not complain and told him: "For Christ's Passion, God bless your hands and may God pay you back." Within a short time, the disease struck the left eye.
For the next 12 years she continued to experience intense pain in her head. As always, she remained patient and uncomplaining, praying in joy for the gift of sharing in Jesus’ suffering.
• In Saint Joseph Monastery Al Dahr in Jrabta, Batroun (1897 - 1914).
Sister Ursula Doumit suffered from arthritis at Saint Simon’s monastery. Her doctors advised her to live near the coast. Sister Ursula’s brother, Fr. Ignatius Doumit, decided to found a monastery for nuns in Jrabta in the district of Batroun. Fr. John Basbous, donated the land for the project.
On November 3, 1897, six nuns, led by Mother Ursula Doumit, were sent to the new monastery of Saint Joseph. Sister Rafqa was one of them. The other nuns were hopeful that the new monastery would prosper thanks to her prayers and example.
In 1899, Rafqa lost the sight in her left eye and became paralyzed. With this, a new stage of her suffering intensified by the dislocation of her joints, began. She spent the last seven years of her life bed-ridden laying on the right side of her body. She could not move. There was a big wound on her left shoulder and she used to repeat: “For the wound in the shoulder of Jesus.” Her vertebras were visible through her skin and her body was like a skeleton covered by skin. However, her hands stayed intact and used them to weave socks.
Although she was blind and paralyzed, she kept smiling and thanking God for His grace of letting her participate in His Passion. Her face reflected peace and tenderness until the end of her days. According to some doctors, Rafqa suffered from an osteoarticular tuberculosis.
On a Thursday, the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, Rafqa asked to be taken to church to attend mass. However, she could not be carried out of bed as usual in a sheet because her left hip was aching that day. When the mass started, everyone was surprised to see her crawling into the church.
Later that day, the Mother Superior, asked her how she could drag herself to church, Rafqa replied that she only asked Jesus to help her, then she felt herself slip out of bed and crawled to church.
Rafqa always asked the sisters not to forget the sixth wound of Jesus; the wound on his shoulder, the wound that caused a lot of pain because it carried the cross of our sins. Rafqa always prayed and recited the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary six times for the 6 wounds of Jesus.
Rafqa was 82 years old when she died. She had lived 29 years in suffering. On March 23,1914, after receiving the Blessed Sacrament, and calling upon Jesus, the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, she rested in peace after a life of prayer, service and years of unbearable pain. She was buried in the monastery's cemetery. A splendid light appeared on her grave for three consecutive nights. With the intercession of Saint Rafqa, Our Lord performed many miracles and blessings.
On July 10, 1927, her body was transferred to the monastery's church. The case related to her beatification was submitted to the Vatican on December 23, 1925, and the canonical investigation of her life began on May 16, 1926.