The Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE BENEDICT
Benedict was born in the region of Nursia in Italy in the year 480, of wealthy and distinguished parents. He did not remain long at school, for he himself saw that through bookish learning he might lose "the great understanding of his soul." And he left school "an unlearned sage and a knowing ignoramus." He fled to a certain monastery where the monk Roman tonsured him, after which he withdrew to a steep mountain where he remained in a cave for more than three years in great labor over his soul. Roman brought him bread and lowered it down the sheer cliff face on a rope to before the cave. When he became known throughout the region, he withdrew from that cave in order to avoid human glory. He was very severe with himself. Once when an unclean spirit of bodily lust seized him, he stripped himself naked and rolled in nettles and thorns until he had driven away from himself every thought of a woman. God endowed him with many spiritual gifts: he saw into hidden things, healed the sick, cast out evil spirits, raised the dead, and appeared to others both in waking and at a distance in dreams. Once he perceived that a cup of wine had been served to him with poison in it. He made the sign of the cross over the cup, and the cup shattered. He founded twelve monasteries, each with twelve monks at the outset. Afterward a particular order of Benedictines was established, which exists to this day in the Roman Catholic Church. Six days before his death he ordered that his grave — prepared in advance — be opened, for the saint had foreseen that his end was near. He gathered all the monks, counseled them, and gave his spirit to the Lord, Whom he had faithfully served in poverty and purity. His own sister, Scholastica, lived in a women's monastery, and following her brother's example she also struggled greatly in the ascetic life and attained great spiritual perfection. When Saint Benedict gave up his soul, two monks — one on the road and another in some distant cell at prayer — simultaneously beheld the same vision: a path from earth to heaven covered with costly fabrics and lit on both sides by rows of people; at the summit of that path stood a man of indescribable beauty and light, who told them that that path had been prepared for Benedict, the beloved of God. Through that vision those two brethren learned that their good abbot had departed from this world. He reposed peacefully in the year 543 and departed to the eternal Kingdom of Christ the King.
2. SAINT EUSCHIMON, BISHOP OF LAMPSACUS
In the time of the iconoclasts he endured persecution and imprisonment. He reposed in the time of the iconoclast emperor Theophilus (829–842).
3. SAINT THEOGNOSTUS, METROPOLITAN OF KIEV
Theognostus was greek by origin and the successor of Saint Peter of Kiev. He suffered greatly at the hands of the Mongol horde under Djanibek. For he had been slandered before the Mongol khan by his own people, Russians, that he paid the khan no tribute whatsoever on account of his rank. When the khan summoned him and inquired of this, he said: "Christ our God has redeemed His Church from the pagans with His honorable blood. Why then should we now pay tribute to pagans?" At last he was somehow freed and returned home. He governed the Church for twenty-five years. He reposed in the Lord in the year 1353.
“When Saint Benedict gave up his soul, two monks beheld a path from earth to heaven covered with costly fabrics and lit by rows of people.”
Hymn of Praise
VENERABLE BENEDICT
Benedict was a mighty wonderworker,
A tearful man of prayer and gentle contrition.
Led by the Spirit of God, steadfast in the true faith,
A kind leader, strong, resolute, and humble.
Placidus was his young novice:
And once Placidus went early to the water.
The holy father was at that moment praying to God,
But suddenly his spirit perceived something far away:
Behold — the stream had risen, the rocks were rolling,
Placidus was already rushing into the torrent toward death,
The current had seized him and was tossing him about,
The saint heard his cry, heard his own name.
Here faith was needed, but also swift pursuit.
Quickly the elder sent the monk Maurus.
Maurus leaped swiftly into the stream,
And came to Placidus across the water as if on a road,
And Maurus did not know that he was walking on water —
The holy man's prayer was holding him at the surface.
When Maurus and Placidus reached the elder
They kissed the elder's hands, and Placidus wept:
— I saw thee, elder, above my head,
When my heart was filled with terror,
Thou tookest me by the hair and lifted me above the water,
Until just then Maurus came to my aid!
By the prayers of the holy father Benedict,
God revealed Maurus also as a wonderworker.
Reflection
We can hardly find a better lesson about not being slothful and putting off prayer and work until tomorrow than the one Saint Ephrem the Syrian gives us with this example: "To a certain brother the thought was suggested (by the enemy): give yourself rest today, and tomorrow rise for the night vigil!" But he answered the thought: "Who knows — perhaps tomorrow I shall not even rise; therefore I must rise today." — So also at work the thought was suggested to him: give yourself rest today and work tomorrow! He answered again: "No — I will work today, and the Lord will take care of tomorrow." And Saint Anthony teaches: "At the dawn of each day order your life as though that day were your last on earth, and you will preserve yourself from sin."
“At the dawn of each day order your life as though that day were your last on earth, and you will preserve yourself from sin.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus before Pilate, namely:
1. How the Lord is silent before Pilate;
2. How Judas at that time throws the silver coins in the temple and hangs himself;
3. And again how Pilate asks, and the Lord is silent.
Homily
on Christ's prophecy of His own glory
Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Matt. 26:64)
He who will not see God as the merciful Samaritan on earth will see Him as the Dread Judge in heaven. So blinded were the Jewish leaders that in Christ the Lord they could see not only not God, nor the Messiah, nor the Prophet, but not even an ordinary good man. They ranked Him below ordinary good men. And not only that: they ranked Him lower even than a robber. They released Barabbas and condemned Christ! They mocked Him, made a spectacle of Him as of some cheap and useless thing. But precisely in the hour when the Jews were wickedly playing with Christ as with some cheap and useless thing, the silent Lord suddenly opened His mouth and spoke: Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven!
What a distance between what Christ truly is and what the Jews took Him for! The Son of Man who sits at the right hand of power is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the holy Archdeacon Stephen and many, many others soon beheld Him. The Son of Man who comes on the clouds with angels and the countless powers and hosts of heaven is again that same Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the holy John the Theologian and Evangelist saw Him and described Him in his Revelation.
O my brethren, do not be led astray by the deceiving tales of those men who say: when we see Christ in heaven as God, then we will believe in Him! That faith will be too late, and that vision unavailing. We must by our faith see Christ as God in that humiliated, spat-upon, beaten, bloodied, and mocked man in the court of Caiaphas; in that silent condemned man whom the Jews regarded as a cheap and useless thing and with whom they made a spectacle. That is the faith which is prized in the heavens. That is the faith which has until now nurtured and transplanted to heaven whole armies of the brightest souls, the mightiest characters, the most enduring heroes, and the most luminous minds.
O humiliated Lord, raise us up to this faith. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“We must by our faith see Christ as God in that humiliated, spat-upon, beaten, bloodied, and mocked man. That is the faith which is prized in the heavens.”