ST DOSITHEUS, MONK - 23 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 23rd of February

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 DOSITHEUS, MONK 

Dositheus, a young man who had spent his first years in a worldly manner, and in gross ignorance of the first principles of Christianity, came to Jerusalem on the motive of curiosity to see a place he had heard frequent mention made of in common discourse. 

A PICTURE REPRESENTING HELL

Here he became so strongly affected by the sight of a picture representing hell, and by the exposition given him of it by an unknown person, that, on the spot, he forsook the world, and entered into a monastery, where the abbot Seridon gave him the monastic habit, and recommended him to the care of one of his monks, named Dorotheus. 

THE NECESSITY OF A RENUNCIATION OF HIS OWN WILL

This experienced director, sensible of the difficulty of passing from one extreme to another, left his pupil at first pretty much to his own liberty in point of eating, but was particularly careful to instil into him the necessity of a perfect renunciation of his own will in every thing, both great and little. 

HE DIMINISHED HIS ALLOWANCE OF BREAD

As he found his strength would permit, he daily diminished his allowance, till the quantity of six pounds of bread became reduced to eight ounces. St. Dorotheus proceeded with his pupil after much the same manner in other monastic duties; and thus, by a constant and unreserved denial of his own will, and a perfect submission to his director, he surpassed in virtue the greatest fasters of the monastery. 

THE WILL OF GOD ALONE REIGNED IN HIS HEART

All his actions seemed to have nothing of choice, nothing of his own humour in any circumstance of them, the will of God alone reigned in his heart. At the end of five years he was entrusted with the care of the sick, an office he discharged with such an incomparable vigilance, charity, and sweetness, as procured him a high and universal esteem: the sick in particular were comforted and relieved by the very sight of him. 

FIVE YEARS LATER, HE WAS ENTRUSTED WITH THE CARE OF THE SICK

He fell into a spitting of blood and a consumption, but continued to the last denying his own will, and was extremely vigilant to prevent any of its suggestions taking place in his heart; being quite the reverse of those persons afflicted with sickness, who, on that account, think everything allowed them. Unable to do anything but pray, he asked continually, and followed, in all his devotions, the directions of his master; and when he could not perform his long exercises of prayer, he declared this with his ordinary simplicity to St Dorotheus, who said to him: “Be not uneasy, only have Jesus Christ always present in your heart.” 

"ONLY HAVE JESUS CHRIST ALWAYS PRESENT IN YOUR HEART"

He begged of a holy old man, renowned in that monastery for sanctity, to pray that God would soon take him to himself. The other answered: “Have a little patience, God’s mercy is near.” Soon after he said to him: “Depart in peace, and appear in joy before the blessed Trinity, and pray for us.” The same servant of God declared after his death, that he had surpassed the rest in virtue, without the practice of any extraordinary austerity. Though he is honoured with the epithet of saint, his name is not placed either in the Roman or Greek calendars.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)