纪伯伦博物馆
THE SAINT SARKIS HERMITAGE
The cult of Saint Sarkis reached north Lebanon in the seventh century.
At the foot of the mountain, overlooking the Valley of the Saints, close
to the Phoenician Tomb, east of the existing building and amidst the
Caverns of the Hermits, lies the cave which Gibran chose as his tomb.
It was known as the Hermitage of Saint Sarkis.
In the fifteenth century, a small building of two stories was erected
east of the hermitage as a residence for the Papal Nuncio. At the time
of the famous Mokaddam Rizkallah (1472), the building was inhabited
by the Flemish Fragrifon and the missionary Francis of Barcelona.
The cavern became the core of a church. The events of the novel of
the Monk of the Qods Lake, by the late Jesuit Father Henri Lammens,
are closely linked to this place, to these times and to the Mokaddam
Rizkallah.
THE RESIDENCE OF THE FRENCH CONSULATE
By the middle of the sixteenth century, the relations between the Maronites of Mount Lebanon and France were so cordial that the small building was converted into a summer residence for the French Consul.
In 1633, at the time of Patriarch Youhanna Makhlouf, a group of Carmelite Monks came to the region and occupied one of the hermitages belonging to the Saint Elisha monastery in the valley of Qannubin. These Monks were followed by Father John the Carmelite, who acted as a liaison between the Pope and Patriarch Girgis Sibaali. In 1699, these Monks were joined by Friar Jeronimo from Mount Carmel who was a polyglot, proficient in Arabic and in many field of knowledge. In consideration of the great culture of the Friar and of his organizing the proselytism of the region, and in gratitude to the Monks for their activity in the fields of health care and religious education, the notables of Bsharri offered them the hermitage, the existing building and the surrounding oak forest, as a mort main property, in order to pursue their missionary activity and promote spiritual culture in the region lying between Wadi Qadisha and the Cedars.
In 1701, the Monks demolished the existing building and replaced it, to the east of the hermitage by the monastery which is still standing. In 1908, some of the Monks moved down to Bsharri and built the Saint Joseph Monastery which is still known as the "Monastery of the Carmelite Fathers". The rest of the Monks remained in the old monastery.
From 1701 until 1908, the Monks were diligently active in their religious, social and educational activities. They also cultivated the land adjacent to the monastery and irrigated their crops from basins which were still existent not so long ago. They also progressively enlarged the monastery.
According to the Annals of the Monks and popular traditions, one of
them, Friar Michael, became famous as an example in piety and
hard work - "for fear of the devil", he said. Gibran frequently spoke of
him to Mary Haskell (as we shall see at the end of the chronology).
It was he who excavated the galleries and carved the steps in the
rocks that lead to the hermitage which by then, had become a church
and was visited by worshippers in large numbers on Sundays and
feast days.
On the western side of the "Small Chapel" (the upper room), Friar Michael pierced a long tunnel through the mountain until he reached the cliff facing the city, where he erected small campaniles whose bells ring for prayer.
The Annals of the Monks tell us that Our Lady of Lourdes, pitying the suffering Friar Michael who had to carry water to irrigate his crops, appeared to him one night and beckoned him to follow her to a nearby rock east of the monastery and signaled to him to dig beneath it. He did, and a fountain sprang out. The place was consecrated to Our Lady of Lourdes. It is now a sanctuary visited by worshippers. it was enlarged and illuminated by the National Gibran Committee when it restored the monastery and turned it into the Gibran Museum.
THE SAINT SARKIS HERMITAGE, THE GIBRAN CEMETRY
The cavern-hermitage, the Church, the monastery, the spiritual heritage, the Phoenician vestiges, the nature of the land with its fantastic turmoil and beauty, the enchantment of Wadi Qadisha (Holy Valley)... all of these developed in Gibran when still a child, his spiritual capacities. They also brought, more than anything else, his deep and turbulent senses to maturity, breeding in him a strong and firm style, along with his imagination, created a power of conception and a method of thinking unusual in their depth and scope.
As a child, he bore them in himself, and as a visionary, they carried him to the limits. At the age of twelve, he traveled to Boston. During his stay in Bsharri and in Beirut (1898 - 1902) in order to learn Arabic and French, he spent his summers soaking in the splendor and the tempestuous history of the two cities, as revealed by their mythology. They created in him a soaring hymn and ardent desire to return to them.
In 1926, he wrote to his compatriot Youssef Torbey Rahmeh, an emigrant who had returned to Bsharri, asking him to buy for him from the Carmelite Fathers the hermitage, the monastery and the adjoining forest in order to make of the hermitage his tomb and of the monastery, as he expected to retire, a seclusion where he would devote himself completely to his artistic activities.
Despite a policy forbidding sale of real estate, the Father Superior accepted to sell, in consideration of Gibran's spirituality, his world-wide reputation, and the unanimous wish of the Bsharri people to see him return to what he called his "heart's homeland". However, Gibran was unable to realize his dream. But he told his friends, and wrote in his will, his desire to be buried in the hermitage-cavern. He died on April 10, 1931.
The people of Bsharri encountered many difficulties, both in Lebanon and in America, to recover Gibran's body. The Bsharri Youth Committee and the Lebanese in general overcame these difficulties and Gibran's remains reached Bsharri on August 22, 1931. It was Mariana Gibran, his sister, who bought the coveted real estate, using some of the money left over by her brother. Within few months , the tomb was excavated in the rock of the hermitage and his coffin was placed in it.
The regard the people of Bsharri had for their Gibran is illustrated
by the epitaph the builders of the tomb wrote above it: "Here lies
Gibran us". But one of the impassioned people for his art, playing on
the words, modified the last two words to read "our prophet". Gibran's
first dream was realized and he is now able to " hear in his eternal
silence, inside the hermitage, the voice of the flute that colors the
cheeks of the daisies in the field." The expectation of the Bsharri
people that the tomb would one day be a shrine was also realized.
ventually, Mariana donated the whole estate to the Gibran National
Committee.
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