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MOTHER MARIE ALPHONSINE DANIL GHATTAS FOUNDRESS OF THE HOLY ROSARY CONGREGATION
Mother Marie Alphonsine Danil Ghattas was born in Jerusalem, on 4th October, 1843, was christened on 19^th November, 1843. On 18th July, 1852, she received the Sacrament of Confirmation from the hands of the Latin Patriarch Mgr. Valerga. At the age of 14 she joined, as a “Postulant” the Congregation of St. Joseph of the Apparition. On 30th June, 1860, she received the Holy Habit of the Religious of St. Joseph of the Apparition. In 1862 she pronounced her three vows. In Bethlehem where she was assigned, she was entrusted with the teaching of Catechism, besides,
She founded Confraternities and Associations and promoted the devotion to Our Lady and the prayer of the Rosary. She was favored with several apparitions from Our Lady, through which She revealed to Mother Marie Alphonsine Her desire to begin the Congregation of the Rosary, and appointed father Joseph Tannous Yamine as her Director to administer the Congregation of the Rosary. Father Tannous rented a modest house for the five postulants which they entered on 24th July, 1880. Mgr. Vincent Bracco, the Latin Patriarch, vested them in the Holy Habit on 15th December, 1881. Mother Marie Alphonsine went through hard times before she obtained on 12th October, 1880 the dispensation from her vow of obedience to the Superiors of St. Joseph and permission to enter the new Congregation of the Holy Rosary. Father Tannous was always there to help her during those critical times. On 6^th October, 1883 she received the Habit of the Rosary Congregation from the hands of Mgr. Pascal Appodia, Patriarchal Vicar. On 7^th March, 1885 Mother Marie Alphonsine was admitted together with the first group of 8 Sisters, to profession and pronounced their three vows in a ceremony presided over by Mgr.
Vincent Bracco, the Latin Patriarch. On 25^th July, 1885 Mother Marie Alphonsine was assigned, together with another Sister to Jaffa in Galilee. There, the young girl Nathira I’d, fell into a deep cistern filled with water, Mother Marie Alphonsine threw her large rosary of 15 decades and invoked Our Lady to help them. Nathira came out safe and sound. In October 1886, she was sent to a new foundation, Beit-Sahour (the Shepherds’ Village), where, it was expected, she would open a school. In 1887, she left, together with 3 Sisters for Salt, the first mission in Trans Jordan. Two years later she was sent to Nablus, for health reasons she was taken to Jerusalem to the Mother House. Once healed, she was sent to Zababdeh. In 1892, we find her in Nazareth to assist Father Tannous on his death bed. In 1893, Mother Marie Alphonsine established in Bethlehem a workshop to give work to poor girls. She remained 15 years in Bethlehem; those years were full of zeal and enthusiasm, at the end of which she was recalled to the Mother House in Jerusalem, in 1909, where she remained till 1917, when she was charged with the foundation of an orphanage in the town of Ain-Karem. There, she could return to her life of prayer to fulfill Our Lady’s wish, that the Rosary be recited perpetually. On 25^th March, 1927 Mother Marie Alphonsine breathed her last while praying the rosary with her Sister Hanneh Danil Ghattas. Thus, Mother Marie Alphonsine was distinguished by her total abandonment to the Divine Providence. She is the apostle of hope and trust in God and Our Lady, and the apostle of the Rosary. She firmly believed in our Lady’s words: *“THE ROSARY IS YOUR TREASURE”!* His Holiness, the late Pope John Paul II, announced the acknowledgement of the heroic virtues of Mother Marie Alphonsine on 15 October, 1994, and in 1995 she was proclaimed *“VENERABLE”.* The Rosary Sisters are present and work in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Arabian Gulf (Abu Dhabi, Sharjah) Kuwait and Rome.
Mother Marie Alphonsine ... Her Life In Album