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Thursday, 24 April 2008 |
Abuna Yaaqub El-Haddad was born on February, 1, 1875 in Lebanon. While in Egypt working as a teacher, he felt God's call to become a priest. He entered in Saint Anthony's convent of the Capuchin Friars in Khashbau in 1893. He took perpetual vows in 1898 and became a priest in 1901.
Abuna Yaaqub lived at the Bab Idriss monastery in Beirut where he worked with zeal. One of his many activities was to build schools for village children. He established the Third Order for men and women. After World Was I, he bought the Jall-Eddib hill where to build a church and erect a Cross, for which he had great veneration. The hill soon became the meeting point of those poor and ill, who were welcomed and taken care of by abuna Yaaqub and his Tertiary lay people. Abuna Yaaqub felt the need to establish an institute that would take care of those sick. He founded the Franciscan Nuns of "Lons le Saunier". They would later become the Congregation of the Lebanese Franciscan Sisters of the Cross.
After a life full of continuous struggle, Abuna Yaaqub passed away on June 26, 1954, holding the Cross of the Lord. Many people participated at his funeral, and his fame of being a saint spread fast in the country. He will be beatified by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, on June 22 in Beirut.
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Saints of the Hl. Land