The Lives of the Saints
1. THE VENERABLE ONUPHRIUS THE GREAT
This holy ascetic had lived a full sixty years in the desert when the monk Paphnutius visited him. His hair and beard reached to the ground, and his body was covered with long hair because of his long nakedness. All the hair on him was white as snow, and his whole appearance was radiant, exalted, and awesome. Seeing Paphnutius, he addressed him by name and then told him the story of his life in the desert. His guardian angel had appeared to him and led him to that place in the desert. For a long time he had fed only on herbs, which were rarely found in the desert, and after that, when he had endured a fierce struggle with demonic temptations and his heart had become fully strengthened in the love of God, an angel of God brought him bread for nourishment. And besides this, by the gracious Providence of God, a palm tree grew beside his cell which bore good dates, and a spring of living water opened up. "But most of all," said Onuphrius, "I am nourished and sweetly refreshed by the words of God." When Paphnutius asked him how he received communion, the desert-dweller replied that an angel of God brought him communion every Saturday and communed him. The next day the elder told Paphnutius that this was the day of his departure from this world; he knelt, prayed to God, and gave up his spirit to God. Then Paphnutius saw a heavenly light illuminate the body of the reposed saint and heard the singing of the angelic hosts. Having honorably buried the body of Onuphrius, Paphnutius returned to his monastery, to tell others as a living witness, for their profit, the wondrous life of the man of God and the greatness of God's providence for those who give themselves wholly to the service of God. Onuphrius departed this life in the year 400.
2. THE VENERABLE PETER OF ATHOS
A Greek by birth and a soldier by profession. Once while fighting against the Arabs, he was captured, bound in chains, and cast into prison. Peter languished for a long time in the city of Amara on the River Euphrates, and he ceaselessly prayed to God to free him from prison and lead him to some desert where he might devote himself entirely to the ascetical struggle of prayer. Saint Simeon the God-Receiver appeared to him in prison together with Saint Nicholas, touched his chains with his staff, and the chains melted like wax, and Peter suddenly found himself in a field outside the city. He immediately set out for Rome, where at the tomb of the Apostle Peter he was tonsured as a monk by the pope himself. Then he set out again by ship for the East. In a dream the Most Holy Theotokos appeared to him with Saint Nicholas, and the Theotokos said to Saint Nicholas that she had designated Mount Athos for Peter's ascetical struggle. Peter had never before heard of Mount Athos. Having disembarked, therefore, on the Holy Mountain, Peter settled in a cave where he spent fifty-three years in severe ascetical struggles, in battle with hunger and thirst, with heat and cold, and above all with demonic powers, until he conquered all with the help of God. After he had endured the first temptations and passed well the first difficult tests before God, an angel of God began to bring him bread every forty days. Several times the tempter devil appeared to him in the form of an angel of light, but Peter drove him away with the sign of the Cross and the name of the Most Holy Theotokos. A year before his death a certain hunter, who was hunting deer on Athos, found him and heard his life story from the saint's own lips. He departed this life in the year 374. His relics were transferred to Macedonia.
3. THE VENERABLE TIMOTHY, DESERT-DWELLER OF EGYPT
He struggled ascetically first in the Thebaid and then withdrew into the desert, where he spent thirty years. Having pleased God, he departed this life peacefully.
4. THE VENERABLE BASSIAN AND JONAH
Monks of the Solovetsky Monastery. They drowned and were cast upon the shore in the year 1651. Over their grave a certain sign appeared, and because of this a church was built. Later the Petrominsky Monastery was established there. Once Tsar Peter the Great, having been saved from a storm, spent three days there and made a cross and planted it on the shore.
“Most of all I am nourished and sweetly refreshed by the words of God.”
Hymn of Praise
Holy Peter in the dreadful desert,
Poor in every earthly good
But rich in the wiles of the devil,
Conquered all with tearful prayers.
He restrained his heart and raised it toward God,
He straightened his mind and lifted it to heaven,
Immovable as a rock among the rocks,
Tormented by hunger and all-night vigils.
He set himself aright in every righteousness,
As one without flesh while in earthly flesh.
Half a century on the Athonite Mountain
He spoke with God alone in prayer.
From old age he turned white as snow,
Neither seeing nor desiring any man.
God opened for him a window of heaven,
And Peter beheld countless wonders,
The Mother of God and God's angels,
And the wondrous saints of God.
The Lord sent him an angel,
And gave him Holy Communion from heaven,
Until Peter became a spiritual giant,
Like a city on a high mountain,
To be a teacher for the ages,
A wondrous example for holy monks.
Reflection
Great and wondrous is the Mystery of Communion. Even hermits and desert-dwellers yearned for nothing so much as to be given the opportunity to receive Holy Communion. Saint Mary of Egypt begged Saint Zosimas to bring her the Holy Mystery to the Jordan and to commune her. The Venerable Paphnutius, returning from Saint Onuphrius, came upon in the desert a modest dwelling of four young ascetics. When Paphnutius asked them whether and how they received communion, they answered that every Saturday and Sunday an angel of God visited them and gave them Holy Communion. Paphnutius remained until the first following Saturday and personally was convinced. When Saturday dawned, the entire dwelling was filled with an indescribably wondrous fragrance, and when they were all at prayer, an angel of God in the form of a most beautiful youth, bright as lightning, appeared with the Most Pure Mysteries. Paphnutius was frightened and fell to the ground in fear. But they raised him and brought him to the angel, and he too, together with them, communed from the hands of the angel. From the hands of an angel Saint Onuphrius also communed, by his own account, as did many other hermits and desert-dwellers. It is, therefore, entirely wrong to think that hermits and desert-dwellers did not receive communion. God, Who provided for their bodily nourishment, did not leave them without the life-giving food of the Body and Blood of Christ the Lord.
Contemplation
Contemplate the miraculous multiplication of the loaves in the desert (Matt. 14:15), namely:
1. How the Lord fed five thousand people with five blessed loaves,
2. How He is that living Bread, Who alone can wondrously feed my hungry soul, which all the rest of the world together cannot feed.
Homily
On the Palace and the Hut
The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish (Prov. 14:11)
The palace of Herod lies in ruins, but the cave of the Bethlehem Infant still stands. Imperial crowns have been lost, but the bones of the martyrs have been preserved. The palaces of pagan emperors have turned into heaps of stone and dust, but the caves of hermits have grown into beautiful churches. Golden idols have been scattered into nothing, but the chains of the Apostle Peter are preserved as sacred relics. The mighty Roman state is now only a tale about a dead man, while the Christian hut, the Holy Church, is today the most powerful state in the world. Where are the Jews, the God-slayers? Scattered throughout the world. Where are the mighty Romans? In the grave. Where is the power of bloody Nero? Where is the might of the wicked Diocletian and the base Maximian? Where is the success of Julian the apostate? Where are those high towers? Where the Tower of Babel is: under dust and ashes, under shame and curse.
Go through your city and inquire how many houses of the ungodly have been demolished. How many huts of the righteous have grown into beautiful houses? On justice, brethren, are heaven and earth founded — on God's unshakable justice. Therefore all the works of the ungodly are like an inflated bubble, which bursts and the soles of passersby trample it. The palaces of the Pharaohs and of Babylon are like trampled bubbles, but the tent of righteous Abraham is green and blossoming in eternity. O my brethren, how all-powerful and enduring is justice, and how noisy and passing is injustice, like a storm on a summer day!
O Righteous Lord, how magnificent and consistent Thou art in upholding justice. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“The palace of Herod lies in ruins, but the cave of the Bethlehem Infant still stands. Imperial crowns have been lost, but the bones of the martyrs have been preserved.”