The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub by Jacob Norris;

Author:Jacob Norris;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

OF HYENAS, SERPENTS, AND FRENCH PHILANTHROPISTS

THE VIRGIN HAD LEFT NOTHING to chance. Long before the Rosary Sisters were founded, Marie-Alphonsine already knew every detail of the order, thanks to the Virgin’s meticulous instructions: the style and color of the sisters’ habits (monastic blue and white); the exact way they would pray the Rosary (kneeling in prostration in front of the altar); which mysteries would be prayed at which precise times of day; when the sisters would hold special fast days for the sake of the Rosary (Mondays and Wednesdays); the names of each of the founding sisters; and even the design of their future convent (a round temple in the form of the Rosary). Everything had been revealed by the Virgin in her visits to Marie-Alphonsine.1

Since it was unthinkable for a local Jerusalemite woman to set up her own religious order, Marie-Alphonsine had been obliged to seek the assistance of a local priest in her efforts to form the Rosary Sisters. On this point, too, the Virgin had given specific instructions. In one of her visits to Marie-Alphonsine she had conjured the unmistakable image of her parish priest in Jerusalem, Abouna Yousef Tannous, wearing a brilliant crown of stars above his bearded face. Delighted the Virgin had heard her request that the director be an Arab man, Marie-Alphonsine set about confiding in the priest the mission the Virgin had assigned her.2 From that moment, Abouna Yousef became one of only three people Marie-Alphonsine ever told about her supernatural visions, the other two being the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the Italian priest Antonio Belloni, who ran the orphanage in Bethlehem.3

With Abouna Yousef providing unstinting support, Marie-Alphonsine worked tirelessly to enact the Virgin’s instructions. Together they recruited the sisters the Virgin had mentioned, found a temporary residence in Jerusalem, and drew up the founding constitution of the order. But there was one instruction the Virgin had not provided: how to deal with the ferocious opposition that would plague Marie-Alphonsine wherever she went. Establishing an Arabic-speaking congregation populated by local women was an affront to the franji nuns who ran the other Catholic orders in Palestine. Worse still was the idea that a woman could take the lead in establishing such an order. For the rest of her life, Marie-Alphonsine would bear the burden of transgressing these boundaries, persecuted by those who sought to preserve the status quo and protect their own privileges.

The first to test her resolve came from her mother superior in the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Bethlehem. Upon hearing of the plan to found the Rosary Sisters, this haughty franji woman immediately ordered Marie-Alphonsine to be sent to live in seclusion in Beirut. When Marie-Alphonsine steadfastly refused to comply, the matter had to be settled by a papal representative dispatched all the way from Rome. They settled on a compromise: Marie-Alphonsine was spared the indignity of banishment to Beirut but had to endure three years of seclusion in Jerusalem, shut up in her father’s house while the rest of the Rosary Sisters began their work without her.

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