Nimatullah Kassab Al-Hardini

1808-1858 19th century Feast day: December 14

Faithfulness to the hour of prayer, kept without display, year after year.

Who was Nimatullah Kassab Al-Hardini?

A Lebanese Maronite monk, a bookbinder and copyist, he taught theology to the young monks of Kfifan and was three times elected assistant general of his order without leaving the classroom or the choir for it. He spent long nights before the Blessed Sacrament, and Charbel Makhlouf was his pupil at Kfifan. He died at fifty, in winter, of an illness caught in the monastery.

In their own words

The greatest is he that can save his soul.

The motto he repeated to his brother monks, quoted in the official biography for his canonization, Holy See, 2004

A monk's first concern, night and day, should be not to hurt or trouble his brother monks.

Official biography for his canonization, Holy See, 2004