Monday 23 March 2020

# Feast # Saints

Saint Rafqa (Rebecca)

St Rafka ill in bed in her latter days
The 23rd of March is the feast day of Saint Rafqa (Arabic for Rebecca). She is the patron saint of sick people, bodily ills and loss of parents.

She was born in Himlaya, a Maronite village in the mountains of Lebanon. An only child, her mother died when she was only seven years old. Her father then remarried. Later there was a family discord to whom Rafqa should be married to. However, Rafqa did not wish to marry any of the men and she entered religious life at 21 years old.  She was greatly devoted to Our Lady, through her mother and studied as a teacher. She witnessed and survive a Christian massacre and decided to become a cloistered contemplative nun at the age of 39. Rafqa prayed that she might share the sufferings of Christ and she became blind and paralysed. She died at the age of 82.

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