The Lives of the Saints
1. THE HOLY MARTYR THALALAEUS
From Lebanon by birth, the son of Beruchius and Romilia, an eighteen-year-old youth, beautiful in appearance and physical stature, with reddish-blond hair. A physician by profession. He suffered for Christ in the time of the reign of Numerian. When he courageously confessed his faith in Christ the Lord before the judge and torturer, the latter ordered two executioners, Alexander and Asterius, to drill through his knees with an auger, to pass a rope through the pierced bones, and to hang him from a tree. But an invisible power of God seemed to take away the sight of the executioners, so that instead of Thalalaeus they drilled through a plank and hung it from the tree. When the torturer learned of this, he thought the executioners had done it on purpose and ordered them flogged. Then Alexander and Asterius, in the midst of the flogging, cried out: "As the Lord liveth, from now on we too become Christians, we believe in Christ and suffer for Him!" Hearing this, the torturer ordered them beheaded with a sword. Then the torturer himself took the auger to drill through Thalalaeus's knees, but his hands went numb, and he was forced to beg Thalalaeus to save him, which the guileless martyr of Christ did through prayer. Then Thalalaeus was cast into the water but appeared alive before the torturer. (For within himself Thalalaeus prayed to God not to let him die at once but to prolong his torments.) When he was cast before wild beasts, the beasts licked his feet and fawned around him. At last he was beheaded with a sword and departed to the eternal life in the year 284.
2. THE HOLY MARTYR ASCALON
He suffered in Antinoe, a city of Egypt, in the time of Diocletian. He was flogged, scraped, and burned with candles, but he remained unshaken in the faith to the end. When the torturer Arian was crossing the Nile by boat, Ascalon by prayer stopped the boat in the middle of the river and would not let it move until Arian wrote that he believed in Christ as the one and all-powerful God. But attributing this miracle to Ascalon's magical art, the torturer forgot what he had written and continued to torture the man of God thereafter. Finally a stone was tied around Ascalon's neck and he was cast into the River Nile. But on the third day Christians found Ascalon's body on the bank together with the stone around his neck (as the holy martyr had prophesied to them before his death) and honorably buried him in the year 287. The holy martyr Leonidas also suffered with him. And their torturer, Arian, repented later, believed in Christ with all his heart, and publicly began to profess his faith before the pagans. Then the pagans killed him too, and so Arian, the former torturer of Christians, was also deemed worthy of the martyr's crown for Christ.
3. THE VENERABLE STEPHEN OF PIPERI
This saint was born in the Niksic tribe, in the village of Zupa, of poor but pious parents, Radoje and Jacima. According to tradition, he first struggled ascetically in the Monastery of Moraca, where he also served as abbot. The Turks drove him out from there, and he settled in Turman of Rovci, at a place now called Celiste. Later he moved and settled in Piperi in a cell, where until his death he remained in laborious and God-pleasing ascetical struggle. He reposed peacefully in the Lord on May 20, 1697. His relics rest there to this day and by many miracles glorify Christ God and God's pleaser Stephen.
Hymn of Praise
Before the gaze of men and angels,
In torments and at the point of death,
Thalalaeus prayed to the Lord:
— O Lord, Creator of the world,
Thine is the mercy, Thine the vengeance!
I pray Thee, prolong my life,
That I may endure more torments for Thee.
In truth, too little have I endured
To deserve Thy Kingdom.
Dread were Thy torments on Golgotha,
Dread torments for Thee, the sinless One!
Still more dreadful are needed for the sinful,
That through suffering he might cleanse himself
And worthily receive salvation.
What the beautiful Thalalaeus prayed for,
What he prayed to God he obtained in prayer,
His petition was humble and tender,
God sent him torments in abundance.
To the very end Thalalaeus endured,
All with joy and with gratitude,
From torment to torment he went
As from one feast to a yet greater feast —
Thus does the saint glorify Orthodoxy!
“In truth, too little have I endured to deserve Thy Kingdom.”
Reflection
When a man acquires a Christian conscience, he zealously strives to correct his life and to please God. All else becomes of little importance to him. We have examples of such men not only among the great ascetics and spiritual fathers, but even among the mighty emperors themselves. Such an example is given to us by Emperor Theodosius the Great, who for a time had fallen into heresy but afterward repented. Over his dead body Saint Ambrose, his earlier critic, spoke: "I loved this man who, having removed from himself the imperial insignia, publicly in the church lamented his sin and with sighs and tears begged forgiveness. What common men are ashamed of, the emperor was not ashamed to do. After winning a glorious victory (over the enemies of the empire), he resolved not to approach Holy Communion until the return of his sons, only because in the battle his enemies had been slain."
Contemplation
Contemplate God the Holy Spirit as the inspirer of meekness and goodness, namely:
1. How He has inspired with meekness and goodness ascetics and hermits through all the ages,
2. How He has inspired, and continues to inspire today, with meekness and goodness all truly repentant souls.
Homily
On the Spirit of This World and the Spirit From God
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God (I Cor. 2:12)
The spirit of this world, brethren, is the spirit of pride and cruelty, while the Spirit of God is the Spirit of meekness and goodness. The Apostle of God affirms that the followers of Christ did not receive the spirit of this world but the Spirit which is of God — that is, which proceeds from God the Father like a fragrant scent from a flower, and like a good fragrance pours through the human soul, making it strong, radiant, peaceful, grateful, and tender.
Men are by nature meek and good. Saint Tertullian writes: "The human soul is by nature Christian." But by the spirit of this world it has been irritated and enraged. The spirit of this world has turned sheep into wolves, while the Spirit which is of God turns wolves into sheep.
The Apostle further adds that we have received the Spirit of God so that we might know what has been bestowed upon us by God. That we may recognize, then, what is of God in us and what is not of God, and that we may taste the sweetness of that which is of God and the bitterness of that which is not of God but of the spirit of this world. While a man is outside his own nature, beneath his own nature, he considers bitterness to be sweetness and sweetness to be bitterness. But when by the Spirit of God he returns to his true nature, then he considers sweetness as sweetness and bitterness as bitterness.
Who can return man to God? Who can heal man of the poisoning of sinful bitterness? Who can teach him by experience to distinguish true sweetness from bitterness? No one other than the Spirit which is of God.
Therefore let us pray, brethren, that God grant us His Holy Spirit, as He granted Him to His Apostles and saints. And when that Holy Spirit of God comes into us, the Kingdom of God has come to us, in which all is sweetness, all good, all light, all meekness, all goodness.
O Holy Spirit, Spirit of meekness and goodness, draw near and dwell within us. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“The spirit of this world is the spirit of pride and cruelty, while the Spirit of God is the Spirit of meekness and goodness.”