Episode Transcript  

One

St. Maryam of Bethlehem (Maryam of Jesus Crucified)

Today, August 26th, we celebrate the feast of St. Maryam of Bethlehem. She was born in I’billin, a small village between Nazareth and Haifa in Palestine, now Israel, on January 5th, 1846. She is a Catholic Palestinian who was declared a Saint on May 15th, 2015. I want to share her life with you because I think her motto, if you will learn to live it, will transform your life.

Her parents died when she was just three years old, leaving her and her brother Paul orphaned. They were soon split up and given to different relatives. Maryam went to live with her uncle’s family who moved to Alexandria Egypt in 1858. As was the custom at that time, a marriage was arranged for Maryam when she was 12 years old. But she refused because she had promised to give herself to Jesus in consecrated virginity to be his bride alone. She begged, but her uncle would not change his mind, so she turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary for guidance. She was inspired to follow the example of Catherine of Siena who, facing a similar situation, cut off all her hair. So, Maryam did the same and arrived at the engagement party completely bald. Well, the boy rejected her and her uncle, enraged, disowned her and made her one of the servants of the family. Just like Catherine’s family did to her.

Longing to be reunited with her brother who stilled lived near Nazareth she learned of a Muslim man who was going there on business, so she asked him to carry a message to her brother. During their conversation the Muslim learned of her plight and tried to convert her to Islam. She declared Jesus to be God and flatly refused to convert. In a rage, he unsheathed his scimitar and slashed her throat. To hide the murder, he dumped her body in a grotto in the countryside. For the love of Christ, Little Maryam had born witness to her faith to the point of shedding her blood. She was a martyr, but her story wasn’t over yet.

Two

Cared for by the Mother of God

Maryam recounted what happened next. She was taken to heaven, had a vivid experience of God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as well as Mary, Joseph and many saints. Then a voice spoke which said, “Maryam, your book is not finished.”

When she awoke in the grotto, the most beautiful women dressed in blue sewed up the mortal wound to her neck and nursed her back to health. Each day the woman in blue would feed her an otherworldly soup. It was so good that little Maryam, looked up, and as children do said, “More?” Then the woman spoke saying, “Remember, Maryam, don’t act like other people who think they never have enough. Instead always be content! The Lord who is good, will send you all you need.” Our Lady explained that she must welcome everything as coming from the hand of God and that she must give thanks for everything.

“Always be content” became Little Maryam’s motto.

And we can always be content because as Christians we possess God, who dwells in our soul and by His providence He is guiding absolutely everything that happens for our greatest good.

So, always be content.

Three

A Long Journey

Our Lady told little Maryam she must never go back to her Uncle’s house; that she would first become a religious sister in an order dedicated to St. Joseph and then as a Carmelite and finally she would die in Bethlehem.

After Our Lady nursed Maryam back to health she took to her the local Catholic Church and told Maryam to go to confession. When Maryam came out, Our Lady had disappeared. She explained the whole story to the priest and he promised to help her. He arranged that Maryam would go to work for Catholic families in Jerusalem, Jaffa and then a French family living in Beruit who soon went back to Marseille, France, taking Maryam with them.

When she was 19 Maryam entered the sisters of St. Joseph in Marseille. But by the time she was 20, she had so many mystical experiences and so many miraculous events surrounded her that the Sisters of St. Joseph suggested she join the Carmelites, a contemplative community, in Pau, near Lourdes. Just as Our Lady told her.

In 1870 the Carmelites sent her to Mangalore, India to establish a new convent. There Sr. Maryam received the Stigmata, the wounds of Jesus in her hands, feet and side. She received continual visits from Jesus, Mary, saints, souls in purgatory and attacks from demons. So great were mystical experiences and miracles, that the mother superior again didn’t know what to do with her, so she sent her back to France.

Maryam was totally misunderstood and rejected by her community, but she possessed God and He was guiding all things for good. So, she trusted him and lived her motto, “Always be content!”

Four

A Convent in Bethlehem

Jesus appeared to Maryam seven times, asking her to go back to her homeland, to Palestine, to build a new Carmelite convent in Bethlehem. And each time Jesus appeared to her, he gave her explicit instructions on how to gain the permission from the Vatican and precisely how to build the convent. Jesus wanted the convent in Bethlehem to be designed like a fortress with tower because Jesus told her this was to be a place of spiritual combat to defeat the powers of evil by love, prayer, and sacrifice to bring the victory of Light over darkness.

In 1875 she arrived in Bethlehem and built the convent just as the Lord had instructed. To this day it stands and is in operation.

Then, just as Our Lady foretold, when Maryam was just 32 years old, she fell and broke her arm. Gangrene set in, which was very hard to cure in those days. And she died on August 26, 1878.

Five

Always be Content!

John of the Cross teaches that most of us are chained to two or three good things in this world. We think we need them to be happy. But these attachments rob us of peace and keep us from being filled with God. Eventually, they must be purified, either now or in purgatory. So why wait?

Detachment does not mean possessing nothing. St. Louis IX was a saint while remaining a king, husband, father, and ruler of a kingdom. The problem is not having good things. The problem is needing them in order to be happy.

St. Maryam of Bethlehem gives us the secret of detachment in three words: “Always be content.” St. Paul learned this secret, “I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content… I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I have strength for all things in the One who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11–13).

When God gives you something good, receive it with gratitude. When you do not have it, remain at peace. You still possess God, and if you possess God, you possess the one treasure you truly need. When you have it, give thanks. When you do not, remain at peace. God is enough. That is interior freedom and detachment: always being content because God is your treasure.

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