Below is the speech delivered by General Superior Sister Marie Makhlouf:
"Your Holiness Our Supreme Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV,
We welcome you to the Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, the hospital that does not choose its patients, but lovingly embraces those whom no one else has chosen.
Here dwell forgotten souls, burdened by their loneliness… faces unseen in the media, unheard from pulpits. Your visit today bears witness to the little brothers of Jesus, the poorest of the poor, and the most afflicted, of the love of God for them and of the precious place thy hold in His heart, and yours…
You have raised before the world an evangelical banner: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
And today we affirm: peace is born when the Church reaches out to the hand of one who cannot even pronounce his own name. We are grateful for your visit to our hospital, a place that testifies to the world that those forgotten souls are not a weight to be carried, but rather a cherished treasure of the Church.
We thank you, for your visit is a living sign that the Divine Providence on which has always relied our Blessed Founder, Abouna Yaacoub, continues to guide and sustain us in strength and faith. Our mission is a daily miracle, as witnessed by those who lived it. For how could a humble institution, deprived of all means, remain steadfast amid the horrors of explosion, hunger, epidemic, and the collapse of state institutions?
How do we carry on, without support, yet open our doors ever wider, each time the world’s doors close to those who seek refuge? Neither science can explain it… wordly economics… nor human logic. Only Heaven holds the answer…!! It is Abouna Yaacoub’s great miracle!! We live from the “widow’s mite,” yet we lack nothing; for God turns the offerings of our benefactors into an overflow of love, just as Christ multiplied the five loaves and the two fish. The miracle is renewed, and the hungry are fed.
Your Holiness,
We pray with you for the day when Lebanon, the faithful throughout the world, and the daughters of Abouna Yaacoub will rejoice in the solemn celebration of his canonization upon the altars of the Church, so that he may shine as a beacon of love for the poor, their intercessor, and a genuine image of coexistence; He who welcomed the suffering and founded institutions for their sake; He was, indeed, a state in a man, and a living icon of humanity, when he declared: “My religion is Lebanon and all the suffering…”
Your Holiness, thank you for being a father to the forgotten, the abandoned, and the marginalized. Be assured that we carry you in our prayers alongside our patients, our students, and all those who serve with us, and together with you, we implore Mary, our Mother, saying in your own words:
Teach us to stand beside you at the countless crosses,
where your Son is still crucified…
Thank you."
"Your Holiness Our Supreme Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV,
We welcome you to the Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, the hospital that does not choose its patients, but lovingly embraces those whom no one else has chosen.
Here dwell forgotten souls, burdened by their loneliness… faces unseen in the media, unheard from pulpits. Your visit today bears witness to the little brothers of Jesus, the poorest of the poor, and the most afflicted, of the love of God for them and of the precious place thy hold in His heart, and yours…
You have raised before the world an evangelical banner: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
And today we affirm: peace is born when the Church reaches out to the hand of one who cannot even pronounce his own name. We are grateful for your visit to our hospital, a place that testifies to the world that those forgotten souls are not a weight to be carried, but rather a cherished treasure of the Church.
We thank you, for your visit is a living sign that the Divine Providence on which has always relied our Blessed Founder, Abouna Yaacoub, continues to guide and sustain us in strength and faith. Our mission is a daily miracle, as witnessed by those who lived it. For how could a humble institution, deprived of all means, remain steadfast amid the horrors of explosion, hunger, epidemic, and the collapse of state institutions?
How do we carry on, without support, yet open our doors ever wider, each time the world’s doors close to those who seek refuge? Neither science can explain it… wordly economics… nor human logic. Only Heaven holds the answer…!! It is Abouna Yaacoub’s great miracle!! We live from the “widow’s mite,” yet we lack nothing; for God turns the offerings of our benefactors into an overflow of love, just as Christ multiplied the five loaves and the two fish. The miracle is renewed, and the hungry are fed.
Your Holiness,
We pray with you for the day when Lebanon, the faithful throughout the world, and the daughters of Abouna Yaacoub will rejoice in the solemn celebration of his canonization upon the altars of the Church, so that he may shine as a beacon of love for the poor, their intercessor, and a genuine image of coexistence; He who welcomed the suffering and founded institutions for their sake; He was, indeed, a state in a man, and a living icon of humanity, when he declared: “My religion is Lebanon and all the suffering…”
Your Holiness, thank you for being a father to the forgotten, the abandoned, and the marginalized. Be assured that we carry you in our prayers alongside our patients, our students, and all those who serve with us, and together with you, we implore Mary, our Mother, saying in your own words:
Teach us to stand beside you at the countless crosses,
where your Son is still crucified…
Thank you."
