Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas
The church was celebrated by Mary Alfonsen, Daniel Ghattas, and Mary's sister Jesus, who was crucified by my father. This means that the Church has verified the originality of their spiritual experience, and their journey with God, which they present to us today as an example and an instrument of intercession. What is the Church based on this certainty? In our opinion, this certainty is due to two main evidences: the biography of their virtuous Christian life, and the blessings that some of the Baptists received by their intercession after their death. The Church also calls these miracles miracles, as the mind can not understand its occurrence and the science of its interpretation. In this article, we will discuss the biography and the wonders of Mother Marie Alphonsen, the Rosary Sisters Foundation, and we will devote another article in the coming days to Sister Mary Jesus of the Crucifixion of Bardi, the Carmel Monastery in Bethlehem.
The first proof of the holiness of the mother Mary Alphonsen: The modestness of her Christian life saturated with the virtues and evangelical advice
The stage of "inquiring" about the life of the baptized candidate for the proclamation of his Holiness in the Church is of great importance. The fate of the sacrificial act brought by the diocese or the monastic assembly to which this baptized person belongs shall cease. The primary purpose of this inquiry is to ascertain the authenticity of the Christian life of the candidate, and thus to serve as an example for his Christian brothers in the practice of evangelical perfection. His practice of virtues and his life is examined.
Mother Mary Alfonsen was born in Jerusalem on October 4, 1843, in the midst of a pious Christian family. Her father was Daniel Francis Issa Ghattas and her mother Katrina Antoun Youssef. The Ghattas originally belonged to their hometown of Bethlehem. But they scattered here and there, and seem to have overlooked their first family ties and find them today in Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, some of them Roman Catholics and the other Greek Orthodox. We do not know at what time they were divided.
Mr. Daniel's family lived in Jerusalem, distinguished by piety and religious practice. The housewife kept attending the Divine Liturgy every day. Her husband was happy to receive his friends and neighbors every night in his house to pray in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary, lit candles and burned incense. The oldest Christian families in Jerusalem followed this good custom to honor the Virgin Mary.
The girl was called Sultana. Although her name is related to the titles of the glorious Virgin closely, her relatives preferred to add in the name of Mary the name of Mary, following the Virgin of the Lord of heaven and earth.
Years after her father's strong opposition, on June 30, 1860, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Sultana was given the unique privilege of looking for the Saint Joseph Order in the world's holiest spot on Mount Gallaghe. According to the established practice, the nun was given a new name to signify the beginning of a new life. She became known as Sister Mary Alfonsen.
As far as Sister Mary Alfonsen was enthusiastic in her apostolic and highly dignified activity of the peat, she was also calm, obedient, and balanced with the mind of everyone she knew. As for her humility, there is nothing wrong. On every occasion, she avoids appearing and only wants to work silently, pleasing to the face of God, not human beings.
The Virgin Mary blessed her with revealing insights about her desire to establish a national monastic order bearing the name of the Order of the Holy Rosary. Her father Joseph Tannous, a priest of the Latin Patriarchate, appointed her as a guide and a teacher. After considerable hardships that St. Mary Alfonsen took courageously, she received permission from the Holy See to move from the Order of St. Joseph and to join the new Order in 1880. The Rosary Lady's gown was made in 1883. The saint hid the mystery of the apparitions and no one knew of her except her guide. She has lived silently and mysteriously, and has kept her secret for 53 years in total honesty and secrecy. She has not told anyone other than her guides about "these difficult things that No name "as you call it in the first manuscript. And if it were not for the intervention of the divine Providence through her guide, Joseph Tannous, who ordered her to write down everything she saw and heard, perhaps today we are ignorant of everything about a supernatural spiritual test and about the establishment of the Rosary Order. On the one hand, the orders of the Virgin were indisputably assertive and had to be implemented hastily. On the other hand, it seemed difficult for the nun to turn the back of the saint to the Order of Saint Joseph, and she was committed to her with the three vows. Her heart was so infused by her, and her service was evident, with amazing dedication and success attesting to him. Her leaders were not aware of the spiritual revelation and the message that the Virgin had given her. How then to them to facilitate the way? Every step in the new direction will be calculated, and this is an escape from service and an inexcusable betrayal. However, the Secretariat of the Virgin was stronger and stronger than all the obstacles, and will not separate her from her love, not death and not accused of betrayal and arrogance. It was rightly said: "Love is stronger than death." She made the following decision: "I resolved to love Mary and honor her to obey her voice and sacrifice myself in the Rosary Order, trusting my mother's help and believing that she always accompanied me and supported me."
Sister Mary Alfonsen served in many missions. In Nazareth, where she miraculously saved the lives of a child who fell in a deep well, Beit Sahur, Salt, Nablus, Jerusalem, Zababdeh, Bethlehem and Ein Karem, where she died in 1927.
A few days before her death, Mary Blonsen took advantage of her mother's unique opportunity to be captured. "After my death, go to such a place," she said. And handed them over to Patriarch Berlesina. " Mother Hanna found the two tablets, the first of which included the narrator of the apparitions stamped with red wax. And addressed them to Monsignor Marcos, recommending that the Patriarch inform the Secretariat. And so she carried out the desire of her late sister.
In the absence of the Patriarch in Arabic, he asked Mother Augustine to translate those pages and ordered the original manuscripts to be returned to the President. And nearly nuns, especially the mother, learn about their contents until the surprise happened. It finally came to the truth that the sun shines like the sun and the thick fog that obscured the character of the Blessed Mary Alfonsen was lost, and all of them lost the enormity of the speeches that came down in the Assembly to the death of that venerable nun who had remained hidden from their eyes for so long.
On this humility, an eyewitness recounted an incident that occurred to Mother Mary Alphonsen in Bethlehem during the reign of Father Lesicke, who was famous for his cruelty to her. She said that she once prayed in the church, sitting on the ground, as usual, the old people of Bethlehem. This is a testament to its simplicity and infinite naiveté. It was not forbidden or displeased, but the priest did not see it until the widest of it and rebuked it in full view and hearing from all present. He was then instructed to move to the next seat. What they were only that I obeyed the order without opening the mouth with one word. The nun, who was accompanying her, said in defiance: "If I were your place, I would know what I would answer. How can you be patient with his harsh observation? "I replied calmly and gently:" Do not you know that we should buy paradise with humility? "
