The Lives of the Saints
1. SAINT ALEXIUS, THE MAN OF GOD
The ways by which God leads those who desire to please Him and fulfill His law are manifold. In the time of Emperor Honorius there lived in Rome a high imperial dignitary named Euphemianus, a man of great distinction and great wealth. Both he and his wife Aglaïda led a life pleasing to God. Though he was wealthy, Euphemianus sat down at table only once a day, and that after the setting of the sun. They had an only son, this Alexius, who when he came of age was compelled to marry. But that very same night he abandoned not only his wife but his father's house, boarded a ship, and came to the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia, where there was the famous image of the Lord Jesus sent by the Lord Himself to King Abgar. After venerating that image, Alexius put on the clothing of a beggar and lived as a beggar for seventeen years in that city, praying unceasingly to God in the porch of the church of the Most Holy Theotokos. When he became known there as a man pleasing to God, he feared human glory and departed, boarded a ship to go to Laodicea, but by God's Providence the ship was carried off course and sailed all the way to Rome. Taking this as the finger of God, Alexius resolved to go to his father's house and, unknown, to continue his life and ascetic labor there. His father did not recognize him, but out of compassion allowed him to live in a small room in his courtyard. There Alexius spent another seventeen years, living on bread and water alone. Abused by the servants in various ways, he endured everything to the end. And when his end drew near, he wrote a document, clasped it in his hands, lay down, and breathed his last on March 17, 411. Then there was a revelation in the church of the Holy Apostles in the form of a voice, which spoke in the presence of the emperor and the patriarch: seek the man of God. Shortly afterward it was revealed that this man of God was in the house of Euphemianus. The emperor came with the pope and the whole retinue to the house of Euphemianus, and after lengthy inquiry learned that the beggar was this man of God. When they entered his room, they found him dead, yet with his face as bright as the sun. From that document his parents learned that he was their son Alexius, and his bride — who had lived thirty-four years without him — learned that he was her husband; and immeasurable grief and anguish seized them all. But afterward they were comforted, seeing how the Lord had glorified His servant. For many sick persons were healed by touching his body, and fragrant myrrh flowed from his body. His body was buried in a casket of marble and emerald. His head is kept at the Holy Lavra on the Peloponnese.
2. HOLY MARTYR MARINUS
He was a soldier. Not only did he refuse to offer sacrifice to idols, but he scattered the sacrifices offered by others and trampled them underfoot. For this he was tortured and beheaded in the third century. A certain senator Asterius, dressed in costly white garments, was watching the martyrdom of Saint Marinus. He was so inflamed with faith in Christ — Who gives such courage to His followers — that he himself took the martyr's body on his own back, carried it away, and buried it honorably. Seeing this, the pagans killed him too as a Christian.
Hymn of Praise
SAINT ALEXIUS, THE MAN OF GOD
Alexius abandoned everything the world calls glory,
And set out toward God by the narrow but right path.
To become poor for Christ's sake — that he resolved first;
Then he hastened to leave behind the splendor of his parents.
Both when he went far away and when he returned,
Neither in splendor nor in wretchedness did he stumble into sin.
He kept his mind raised toward God — a burning candle —
With strong faith and prayer that moves mountains.
His sorrowful mother, inconsolable — mother Aglaïda,
Old father Euphemianus mourns and weeps,
And his bride, once young, has withered from sorrow.
One day the servants grew accustomed to the beggar,
But who that emaciated beggar is, no one even suspects.
Why, he is the heir of the house! — but he keeps silent about it.
He renounced his inheritance while still in early bloom,
That he might be a co-heir in the heavenly world.
But a saint cannot remain hidden — the Lord reveals the saint;
He who glorifies God with his life — God glorifies him.
Alexius glorified God, and therefore became glorious;
Truly he was and remains the Man of God.
“A saint cannot remain hidden — the Lord reveals the saint; he who glorifies God with his life — God glorifies him.”
Reflection
Why are we here on earth? To show our love for God. To learn to love God more than sin. To answer with our small love the great love of God. Only God's love is great love; ours is always small. God has sufficiently shown and continues to show His love for man — both in Paradise and on earth. We have been given this brief earthly life as a school and an examination, to be tested whether we will answer God's great love with love or not. "Every day and every hour a proof of our love for God is required of us," says Saint Isaac the Syrian. For God too every day and every hour proves His love for us. Every day and every hour we stand placed between God and sin, and we must either bestow our love on God and rise among the angels, or incline toward sin and fall into the dark abyss. Alexius the Man of God loved God more than his parents, his wife, and his wealth. He spent seventeen years as a pauper far from his parents' home, and another seventeen again as an unknown and despised pauper in his parents' home — all for love of God. And the merciful God answered love with love: for those thirty-four years of suffering He gave Alexius eternal life and joy among His angels in the heavens and glory on earth.
“Every day and every hour we stand placed between God and sin, and we must either bestow our love on God or incline toward sin.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus on Golgotha, namely:
1. How the soldiers strip the garments from Him, and He is silent and does not resist;
2. How they nail Him with nails to the wood, and He is silent and does not resist;
3. How with noise and clamor they raise the cross from the ground and set it upright — and the Lord is silent.
Homily
on the second coming of the Lord
For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be (Matt. 24:27)
The second coming of the Lord Jesus will be a coming in glory. This the Lord has said many times. But here He tells us yet more precisely what that coming will be like. It will be like lightning, He says. By this He reveals to us five qualities of that glorious coming of His.
First, His second coming will be sudden as lightning. That is why He has warned us: Watch, for ye know not the day nor the hour!
Second, His coming will be bright as lightning. The sun and stars will be darkened, and all the universe will lose the radiance of its countenance when He blazes forth. He who sins has less light and radiance; how much greater, then, will his darkness be beneath that heavenly flame! That is why He warned us to keep the lampstands of our souls filled with oil and prepared. O brethren, may we not be found in darkness in that terrible hour!
Third, His coming will be powerful as lightning. For He Himself expressly says elsewhere that He will come with power and glory.
Fourth, His coming will be universal and manifest to all and everyone, from east to west. That is, He will not appear as the first time — seen only by His disciples, or only one tribe, one people, one land, one state — but will appear like lightning, which all men and all peoples on earth shall behold at once.
Fifth, as the appearance of lightning precedes rain and hail, so His second coming will precede the Dread Judgment — which for the just and faithful will be like longed-for rain, and for the unjust and faithless like hail.
Let us prepare ourselves, my brethren, for the clouds are gathering, and from them at any moment the divine lightning may flash.
O Lord great and dread, add oil to the lampstands of our souls, that we may not be found in eternal darkness when Thy eternal light appears. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Let us prepare ourselves, for the clouds are gathering, and from them at any moment the divine lightning may flash.”