Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Vincentian Father Michel Ibrahim prepares to read from the Bible and pray with Joseph Mitri, whose family home in Beirut was severely damaged in the Aug. 4 port blasts. (CNS photo/Doreen AbiRaad)

BEIRUT (CNS) -- A personal visit from a priest can give strength to those whose lives have been turned upside down by the trauma and devastation of the Beirut port blasts.

"There is so much suffering," Vincentian Father Michel Ibrahim told Catholic News Service as he made his way through the stricken Beirut neighborhood of Mar Mikhael to visit families. "Everyone has a painful, heartbreaking story."

Yet, Father Ibrahim said, "many also have a survival story and have experienced God's powerful protection."

Selwa Al Chakhtoura considers it a blessing that her family was spared during the Aug. 4 blast, which killed almost 200 people, injured another 6,000, and displaced more than 300,000 people when 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate detonated.

She and her grown daughter, Micheline, were driving through Beirut at the time.

"I will never forget the people in the streets, covered with blood," Al Chakhtoura told Father Ibrahim.

In the chaos, the mother and daughter were rushing to get home to Al Chakhtoura's apartment. Their family was scared but fine: All the doors leading to the kitchen and bedrooms were blown out, as were the windows of the apartment.

In the living room, with seating pushed together to make way for repairs, Father Ibrahim asked Al Chakhtoura to open his Bible and select a reading. She listened attentively as the priest read from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, "He is not weak toward you but powerful in you." The priest then invited her to pray the Our Father and Hail Mary with him.

"We have to pray because only Jesus can help and support us," Father Ibrahim told her.

He took the black cord necklace affixed with a crucifix and the Miraculous Medal from his neck and placed it around Al Chakhtoura's neck.

 

"I am giving you a part of me to keep with you always," he told her. Eyes wide with surprise, then brimming with tears of gratitude, she responded, "I am so touched, Father."

"Thank God for everything," she said.

A few blocks away, Father Ibrahim visited Joseph Mitri's damaged apartment, taking an electric fan to give Mitri some relief from the oppressive heat. The first time Father Ibrahim visited Mitri after the blast, he gave the devastated homeowner a framed image of St. Vincent de Paul, the founder of the Vincentian order.

Mitri, 55, was alone when the explosion occurred.

"In 15 seconds, everything from the last 30 years ... was taken," said Mitri.

The ceiling in the living room remained collapsed and open to the sky. Mitri said he is overseeing home repairs, while his family stays with relatives.

Mitri told the priest that, more than five weeks after the blast, he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of an empty bedroom. At 2 a.m., he felt as though someone was telling him, "Get up." Although puzzled by the prompting, he nevertheless chose to go into the bathroom. He returned to find a large rock on the mattress, in the spot where his head would have been.

"That was Jesus, warning me," Mitri said.

Father Ibrahim handed the Bible to Mitri. They prayed together, under the open-air ceiling, framed by scaffolding.

"The support of Father Michel means the world to me. He visits me. He prays with me. This gives me strength," Mitri said.

We don’t have comments turned on everywhere anymore. We have recently relaunched the commenting experience at America and are aiming for a more focused commenting experience with better moderation by opening comments on a select number of articles each day.

But we still want your feedback. You can join the conversation about this article with us in social media on Twitter or Facebook, or in one of our Facebook discussion groups for various topics.

Or send us feedback on this article with one of the options below:

We welcome and read all letters to the editor but, due to the volume received, cannot guarantee a response.

In order to be considered for publication, letters should be brief (around 200 words or less) and include the author’s name and geographic location. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

We open comments only on select articles so that we can provide a focused and well-moderated discussion on interesting topics. If you think this article provides the opportunity for such a discussion, please let us know what you'd like to talk about, or what interesting question you think readers might want to respond to.

If we decide to open comments on this article, we will email you to let you know.

If you have a message for the author, we will do our best to pass it along. Note that if the article is from a wire service such as Catholic News Service, Religion News Service, or the Associated Press, we will not have direct contact information for the author. We cannot guarantee a response from any author.

We welcome any information that will help us improve the factual accuracy of this piece. Thank you.

Please consult our Contact Us page for other options to reach us.

City and state/province, or if outside Canada or the U.S., city and country. 
When you click submit, this article page will reload. You should see a message at the top of the reloaded page confirming that your feedback has been received.

The latest from america

Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican as they join him for the recitation of the Angelus prayer and an appeal for peace hours after the U.S. bombed nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran on June 22. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“Let diplomacy silence the guns!” Pope Leo XIV told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square a few hours after the United States entered the Iran-Israel war by bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 22, 2025
Paola Ugaz, a Peruvian journalist who helped expose the abuse committed by leaders of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, gives Pope Leo XIV a stole made of alpaca wool during the pope's meeting with members of the media on May 12 in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Pope Leo XIV’s statement was read at the premiere of a play about the Peruvian investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, who was subject to death threats because of her reporting on sexual abuse.
Gerard O’ConnellJune 21, 2025
Bishop Micheal Pham, center, leads an inter-faith group as they enter a federal building to be present during immigration hearings on June 20 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
About a dozen religious leaders from the San Diego area, including Bishop Michael Pham, visited federal immigration court on Friday “to provide some sense of presence.”
In a time of increasing disaffiliation from and disillusionment with the institutional church, a new theological perspective on the church is needed—one that places Jesus’ own teaching at the center.
Roger Haight, S.J.June 20, 2025