She was born in Abellin (Nazareth) on January 5, 1846 to a Greek-Catholic family. She was baptized with the name Mariam. Orphaned at the age of two, she was adopted by her uncle with whom, in 1854, she went to Alexandria in Egypt. When she was twelve years old, a marriage was arranged for her without her knowledge; to prevent the wedding she cut off her hair, arousing the ire of her uncle and aunt who banished her among the servants. A former Muslim servant, knowing the harassment she suffered from her relatives, invited her to renounce her faith and become a Muslim, she immediately protested: «I am a daughter of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church». The reaction was a scimitar blow to the throat. Then, wrapped lifeless in a sheet, she was abandoned on the street. She woke up in a cave, assisted by a ‘nun dressed in blue’ – Miriam said it was the Virgin – who prophesied her future. Healed, she wandered for thirteen years working as a maid in Alexandria, Jerusalem and Beirut.

In 1863 with the Naggiar family she moved to Marseilles, where she felt the call to the consecrated life. In 1865 she entered the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition who, however, did not admit her to Profession, frightened by the extraordinary phenomena that Mariam considered a disease: kidnappings, visions and, from March 29, 1867, the stigmata. On 14^th of June 1867, she entered the Carmel of Pau where on 27 July she took the habit with the name of Mary of Jesus Crucified. In 1870 he left for Mangalore for the foundation of a monastery, but two years later she returned to Pau due to misunderstandings which, together with a painful diabolical infestation, constituted her great purification.

In 1872 Sister Mariam confided to her superiors that the Lord wanted a Carmel in Bethlehem: she arrived there on September 11, 1875 as architect and construction manager and with the generous collaboration of Berta Dartigaux. On August 22^nd, 1878 she fell, fracturing an arm that became gangrenous. On August 26, she died a holy death.

The beatification ceremony was held on November 13, 1983. The solemn ceremony of canonization on May 17, 2015.