Mother Isabelle Abdullah El-Khoury
Mother Isabelle Abdullah El-Khoury
Reformer of the Antonine Sisters Congregation
April 29, 1878 – July 20, 1953
By General Secretariat of the Antonine Sisters - Our Lady of Graces Convent - Generalate Roumieh El-Metn
Mother Isabelle is the charismatic reformer and the first Superior General of the new generation of the Maronite Antonine Sisters (1932-1953). She is one of the first renovators in our Antiochian Church, who sought to achieve a certain balance between the apostolic dimension of religious life and the contemplative one, which she embraced for over twenty-five years. This apostolic contemplative heritage accompanied the beginnings of religious life in our Orient without any discontinuity.
Mother Isabelle (Adlaid) was born April 29, 1878 in Jezzine, South Lebanon, in an aristocratic family known for her humanity, culture and spirituality. She first went to the American School in Saida, then transferred to a school run by the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Sisters, whom she joined in 1894, and remained with them 10 years.
In 1908, she was called again to the monastic spirituality of both Mar Antonios and Mar Maroun, and joined the Antonine cloistered nuns at Mar Antonios of Padua monastery in Jezzine, June 4th. Thus, she became endowed with both the tradition and spirituality of the Latin and Maronite liturgical heritage.
When living in the cloister, Mother Isabelle felt a deep calling for the apostolic ministry and the caring to the needy and the poor at a time when Lebanon was undergoing great hardships and poverty following First World War. In 1929, and with the approval of the Superior General of the Antonine Order and his council, Mother Isabelle, accompanied with Sr. Mariam Aoun, left the cloister in Jezzine and joined Mar Doumit’s monastery in Roumieh El-Metn, where she established a new way of religious life based both on contemplative prayer and apostolic work.
Soon after she opened the first gratuitous school for the children of the disadvantage families living in Roumieh El-Metn and the neighboring villages, while preserving the monastic dimension of religious life; she was later requested to open an orphanage beside the school.
As time went by and with the approval of the ecclesial authorities, Mother Isabelle began to receive young girls into religious life and accompany them spiritually. The number of sisters soon increased and they became around 40 sisters. This encouraged her to ask permission to leave the cloister and start new apostolic missions. Permission to do so was granted to her in 1940 from the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches in Rome. At the request of the Antonine Order and many Bishops, several schools were opened in different parts of Lebanon. In 1946, Mother Isabelle El Khoury was nominated the first Superior General of the Antonine Sisters, with four assistants, a mistress of novices and a general treasurer.
Mother Isabelle was both “the mother and the educator” for the young generation of the Antonine Sisters. As a “mother”, she was compassionate and caring and at the same time firm and attentive to the needs of each sister; she was also the watchful eye over their human and spiritual growth and journey. As “educator”, she helped in the upbringing of the young generation and the formation of a community around the gospel, the Church mysteries and the religious and liturgical program of the day.
Three characteristics exemplified the spirit of the young generation of sisters :
· Love and preference for the poor over all in their convents and institutions.
· Evangelical and prophetic simplicity based on the presence of Christ in their lives.
· Family spirit inherent in love, forgiveness and joy.
Mother Isabelle’s charismatic evangelical Antonine heritage was embodied in her life and remained as a model for all the sisters to follow. Her repeated testament to them was : in the midst of the human crowd and your activities, watch carefully over your contemplative life and don’t ever prefer anyone or anything over your love for Christ.
Mother Isabelle left us peacefully to the Father July 20, 1953; this date remains, to this day, a sacred symbol and an important station to the General Chapters of the Congregation, wherein the Mother Superior and the council general are elected every six years.
As we lift our prayers of thanksgiving to God for our model Mother Isabelle, we ask Him to grant her the grace of sanctification on the altars of the Church, so that our hearts and the earth will be filled with a whiff of the fragrance of heaven.
