Wednesday, January 18, 2012

I like this story

Makarios the Great of Egypt Reading from the Synaxarion: Saint Makarios the Great was from the Thebaid of Egypt, a disciple, as some say, of Saint Anthony the Great. He was born about 331 and struggled in asceticism in the desert at Scete. Although young, he was called "the child elder" because of his great wisdom and austere manner of life. He was ordained presbyter and reposed in 391, at the age of sixty. There are fifty homilies ascribed to him. It is said of Saint Makarios that he became as a God upon earth, for even as God protects the whole world, so did he cover the faults he saw as if he did not see them. Once he came back to his cell to find a thief taking his things and loading them on a camel. Makarios's non-possessiveness was so great that he helped the thief load the camel. When the camel refused to rise, Makarios returned to his cell and brought a small hoe, said that the camel wanted the hoe also, loaded it on, and kicked the camel telling it to get up. The camel obeyed Makarios's command, but soon lay down again, and would not move until everything had been returned to Makarios. His contemporary, Saint Makarios of Alexandria, was so called because he came from Alexandria and was therefore of that Greek-speaking colony; while Saint Makarios the Great is also called "of Egypt," that is, he belonged to the ancient race native to Egypt, the Copts.

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