Hermit

Father Dario Escobar, the Colombian-born Maronite hermit reported to have spent 14 hours a day in prayer in Lebanon’s Qadisha Valley, has died aged 92 Father Dario Escobar, priest and hermit, has died aged 92. He was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1934, a city which Pablo Escobar also called home, though the two were unrelated. He came from an affluent family and excelled academically, becoming a polyglot and later lecturing in theology and Biblical Greek, according to the Beiruter . It was in the United States, where Father Escobar was living in the 1990s, that he first heard of the Qadisha Valley, “Qadisha” meaning “holy” in Aramaic, the language traditionally associated with Jesus. He had already transferred to the Maronite rite when a Lebanese priest visiting Miami told him of the place, where Christians have sought solitude for the past fifteen hundred years. He left the United States for Lebanon, where he tried various forms of religious life before joining the Lebanese Maronite Order and settling at the Hermitage of Our Lady of Hawqa in the Qadisha Valley in 2000. Renowned for his asceticism, it was reported that the priest spent 14 hours a day in prayer, three working, two reading spiritual texts, and five asleep. He used a stone as a pillow and adhered to a vegetarian diet, with food provided by his garden and donations from visitors. He also made a point of adopting the Lebanese culture in which he found himself, learning Arabic and making a full transition to the Maronite rite. He embraced the Maronite rite completely. He prayed in the tradition of the Lebanese Church. He learned Arabic. He cared deeply about Lebanese politics, following events through the accounts of visitors. He prayed daily for the country and never left it again. His life naturally brings to mind Saint Charbel Makhlouf, also a Maronite, also a hermit and of the same monastic order. Beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1965 and canonised in 1977 in the final canonisation of his pontificate, Saint Charbel lived a life of asceticism and Eucharistic devotion in 19th-century Lebanon. Today he remains the most recognisable Maronite saint and the first Maronite monk to be formally canonised in the modern era. In the later years of his life, a sort of cult following developed around visiting Father Escobar in the hills of the Qadisha Valley. He was reportedly happy to converse with visitors, living a less secluded life than some of the other hermits who inhabited the area. In the final years of his life he was moved to the Monastery of Saint Boula in Hawqa, as climbing the hills to his hermitage had become too difficult. He will be buried at Monastery of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya, famous for the Grotto of Saint Anthony the Great, another renowned hermit. Image credit: X@SacerdosMariae