On March 14, 1976, while the
Lebanese war was at its height, Father de Jerphanion, Head of the Jesuit school
in Jamhour, near
Beirut, accompanied one of his
Jesuit brethen to the
Beirut
airport. His friend was almost paralyzed and needed to be operated in
France
. They
were in the car with the driver and the school nurse when they stopped at a
checkpoint. The guards took the Lebanese driver and nurse as hostages and let
the two French priests walk back to where they were coming from. Father Alban
told his crippled friend to wait for him on the sidewalk and went to a nuns’
monastery that was about 2 kilometers away in order to ask for help, allow his
friend to travel and liberate the two hostages. When he came back to his
friend, bullets were fired at them; he was shot in the abdomen and died. His
friend managed to crawl to a safe place and alerted people. The body was
transferred to the other side and the two hostages were liberated after several
negotiations.
The way Father de
Jerphanion died as a martyr sums up all his personality and life. This priest
died as he lived, perfectly combining work with love.
Alban, who came from a
noble family, distinguished himself by his devotion to work, his perfectionism
and a touch of elegance and beauty in all his activities.
He went to the Province
of the
Near East of his order shortly after
joining it. He was nominated for important educational and administrative
positions. He taught literature to elder students in the
Saint
Joseph
College (
Beirut) when he was only
21! Then, he became director of this school for 12 years (1934-1945), and after
that he was director of the “Club of Catholic Youth”, which included a number
of educated people active in society. Following that, he was in charge of the
Faculty of Medicine, then the Faculty of Engineering of the
Saint Joseph
University,
before becoming President of that University (1958-1965)… When he turned 70, he
did not retire. He was a member on the board of the Jesuit Press, known as the
“Catholic Press”, and then he became head of the school “Collège Notre Dame de
Jamhour” until his death.
Father de Jerphanion
distinguished himself by his taste in his work as previously mentioned and by
his love for renewal and creation. Hence, he renovated old buildings and
modernized laboratories and new buildings. He even took charge of the site of
the new Faculty of Engineering on a green hill in the suburbs of
Beirut. He was known for his vision
and his great capacity to solve problems and quickly take and execute
decisions.
The secret of his
success in his important works was his great love for people and for the
country that he adopted,
Lebanon
. If he seemed cold for any
person who briefly met him, he was in reality all the opposite. He was kind and
generous, helped without any ulterior motive, and trusted his assistants. His
great manners relied on a profound interior life and regular prayers. His diary
reveled to those who read it a spiritual height that he modestly hid and that
exists in few people only.
