Saints celebrated on the 19th of July
Prayer to the Angels and the Saints
Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.
In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.
Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.
Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
ST MACRINA THE YOUNGER, VIRGIN
She was the eldest of all the ten children of St Basil the elder, and St Emmelia; and being trained up in excellent sentiments of piety, after the death of her father, consecrated her virginity by vow to God, and was a great assistant to her mother in educating her younger brothers and sisters.
St Basil the Great, St Peter of Sebaste, St Gregory of Nyssa, and the rest, learned from her their early contempt of the world, dread of its dangers, and application to prayer and the word of God.
CONTEMPT OF THE WORLD, DREAD OF ITS DANGERS
When they were sent abroad for their improvement, Macrina induced her mother to concur with her in founding two monasteries, one for men, the other for women, at a little distance from each other, on their own estate, near Ibora in Pontus.
That of men was first governed by St Basil, afterwards by St Peter. Macrina drew up the rules for the nunnery with admirable prudence and piety, and established in it the love and spirit of the most universal poverty, and disengagement from the world, mortification, humility, assiduous prayer, and singing of psalms. God was pleased to afflict her with a most painful cancer: which at length her mother cured by making, at her request, the sign of the cross upon the sore; only a black spot remained ever after upon the part that had been affected.
MACRINA GAVE ALL THAT WAS LEFT TO THE POOR
After the death of St Emmelia, Macrina disposed of all that was left of their estate in favour of the poor, and lived herself, like the rest of the nuns, on what she earned by the labour of her hands.
Her brother Basil died in the beginning of the year 379, and she herself fell ill eleven months after. St Gregory of Nyssa making her a visit, after eight years’ absence, found her sick of a raging fever, lying on two boards, one of which served for her bed, and the other for her pillow.
ST GREGORY FOUND HER SICK OF A RAGING FEVER
He was exceedingly comforted by her pious discourses, and animated by the fervour and ardent sighs of divine love and penance, by which she prepared herself for her last hour.
She calmly expired, after having armed herself with the sign of the cross.
NOTHING WAS FOUND TO COVER HER CORPSE
Such was the poverty of the house that nothing was found to cover her corpse when it was carried to the grave, but her old hood and coarse veil; but St Gregory threw over it his episcopal cloak. She had worn about her neck a fillet, on which hung an iron cross and a ring.
THE FUNERAL PROCESSION
St Gregory gave the cross to a nun named Vestiana, but kept himself the ring, in which the metal was hollow, and contained in it a particle of the true cross.
Araxus, bishop of the place, and St Gregory led up the funeral procession, which consisted of the clergy, the monks, and nuns, in two separate choirs. The whole company walked singing psalms, with torches in their hands.
SHE DIED IN A.D. 397
The holy remains were conveyed to the church of the Forty Martyrs, a mile distant from the monastery, and were deposited in the same vault with the saint’s mother. Prayers were offered up for them both. St Macrina died in December, 379; but is commemorated by the Latins and Greeks on July 19. This account is given us by St Gregory of Nyssa, in the funeral discourse he made upon her.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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