Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès

On July 12, 1871, at the age of thirty-nine, Rafqa began her novitiate into the new monastery and then on August 25, 1873, she "professed her perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the spirit of the strict Rule of the Baladita Order". She took on the new name that was her mother’s: Rafqa, (Rebecca),[3] the name of Abraham's great-granddaughter and wife of his son Isaac.

St. Simon Monastery was situated on a high altitude, where the winters were very harsh. The nuns followed a very rigid daily schedule throughout the year. Prayer and manual labour became the rule of their daily lives. The nuns planted and harvested vegetables and grain in the surrounding fields. They also cultivated silkworms and sewed vestments for churches.[4] Rafqa remained in this monastery until 1897.

In 1885, Rafqa decided not to join the nuns for a walk around the monastery. In her autobiographical account she wrote,

It was the first Sunday of the Rosary. I did not accompany them. Before leaving each of the nuns came and said to me, 'Pray for me sister.' There were some who asked me to say seven decades of the Rosary ... I went to the Church and started to pray. Seeing that I was in good health and that I had never been sick in my life, I prayed to God in this way, 'Why, O my God, have you distance yourself from me and have abandoned me. You have never visited me with sickness! Have you perhaps abandoned me?'"[4]

Rafqa continued in her account to her superior, the next night after the prayer "At the moment of sleeping I felt a most violent pain spreading above my eyes to the point that I reached the state you see me in, blind and paralyzed, and as I myself had asked for sickness I could not allow myself to complain or murmur."[4]

The mother superior sent Rafqa to Tripoli, where she had a painful medical examination.[4] She suffered two years, with several doctors concluding there was nothing they could do. Upon the persuasion of the priest Estefan, Rafqa consulted a visiting American doctor who strongly suggested that the affected eye be removed. Estefan later recounted, "Before the operation I asked the doctor to anesthetize the eye so that Rafqa would not feel any pain but she refused. The doctor made her sit down and pushed a long scalpel ... into her eye ... the eye popped out and fell on the ground, palpitating slightly.... Rafqa didn't complain ... but only said, 'in communion with Christ's Passion'." The pain was then all concentrated in her left eye and nothing could be done.[3]

Gradually, Rafqa became blind. She continued to experience intense pain in her head, but considered this an opportunity to share in Jesus' Passion.[6] Rafqa did not let this pain isolate her from the community. She continued to spin wool and cotton, and knitted stockings for the other sisters; she also participated in choral prayer.

Due to the harsh winters at the Monastery of St. Simon, Rafqa was permitted to spend the coldest months on the Lebanese coast as a guest of the Daughters of Charity and then of the residence of the Maronite Order. Unable to observe the Rule at these locales, Rafqa asked to be taken to the Monastery of St. Elias at El Rass, which belonged to her order.

In 1897, Rafqa was one of six nuns sent to found the order's new Monastery of St. Joseph of Gerbata in Ma'ad, along with Mother Ursula Doumit, the superior, where Rafqa remained for the last 17 years of her life. It was here that her suffering increased.

In 1907 Rafqa confided to Mother Ursula that she felt a pain in her legs, "as if someone were sticking lances in them and pain in my toes as if they were being pulled off". This began the long list of sufferings and pains Rafqa endured for the last seven years of her life.

Based on direct evidence and on the autopsy of Rafqa's remains in 1927, she had become paralyzed due to complete disarticulation in her wrist and finger joints, while the pain continued in her head, her devastated eye sockets and her nosebleeds ... completely immobile, her lower jaw touched her benumbed knee.

Even in this state, Rafqa was able to crawl to the chapel on the feast of Corpus Christi to the amazement of all the sisters. When asked about this, Rafqa replied, "I don't know. I asked God to help me and suddenly I felt myself slipping from the bed with my legs hanging down; I fell on the floor and crawled to the chapel."

On a separate occasion, when asked by her superior if she would like to see, Rafqa responded, "I would like to see for at least an hour, to be able to look at you." In an instant the superior could see Rafqa smile and suddenly said, "Look, I can see now." Not believing her, Sister Ursula put her to the test asking her to identify several objects. Shortly thereafter, Rafqa fell into a deep sleep for about two hours. Sister Ursula became worried and tried repeatedly to awaken her. Upon waking, Rafqa explained that she had entered a large, beautifully decorated building with baths full of water and people crowding to enter them; she went with them. Sister Ursula asked her why she came back; why she didn't continue to walk. Rafqa explained, "You called me, and I came."

Rafqa's obedience and love for her superior is quite evident in this account. For a nun, the superior, "as the Rule puts it, represents Christ and is owed respect, obedience and love. Despite her condition, Rafqa did nothing without the Superior's permission."

Before dying, Rafqa told of her life to Mother Ursula Doumit, superior of the monastery in which she died, "There is nothing important in my life that is worthy of being recorded ... my mother died when I was seven years old. After her death my father married for a second time."

Three days before her death, Rafqa said, "I am not afraid of death which I have waited for a long time. God will let me live through my death." Then on March 23, 1914, four minutes after receiving the Last Rites and the plenary indulgence, she died.