Abba Macarios the Great - 3.0

Here are some sayings from the Apophthegmata Patrium to read and contemplate for our daily practice of spiritual direction + spiritual formation.




7. Abba Sisoes said, 'When I was at Scetis with Macarius, we went up, seven of us, to bring in the harvest. Now a widow cried out behind us and would not stop weeping. So the old man called the owner of the field and said to him, "What is the matter with the woman that she goes on weeping?" "It is because her husband received a deposit in trust from someone and he died suddenly without saying where he had hidden it, and. the owner of the deposit wants to take her and her children and make slaves of them." The old man said to him, "Tell her to come to us, when we take our mid-day rest." The woman came, and the old man said to her, "Why are you weeping all the time like this?" She replied, "My husband who had received a deposit on trust from someone, has died and he did not say when he died, where he had put it." The old man said to her, "Come, show me where you have buried him." Taking the brethren with him, he went with her. When they had come to the place, the old man said to her, "Go away to your house." While the brethren prayed, the old man asked the dead man, "So and so, where have you put the deposit?" The corpse replied, "It is hidden in the house, at the foot of the bed." The old man said, "Rest again, until the day of resurrection." When they saw this, the brethren were filled with fear and threw themselves at his feet. But the old man said to them, "It is not for my sake that this has happened, for I am nothing, but it is because of the widow and the orphans that God has performed this miracle. This is what is remarkable, that God wants the soul to be without sin and grants it all it asks." He went to tell the widow where the deposit was. Taking it, she returned it to its owner and thus freed her children. All who heard this story gave glory to God.'

8. Abba Peter said this about the holy Macarius: 'One
day he came to the cell of an anchorite who happened to be
ill, and he asked him if he would take something to eat,
though his cell was stripped bare. When the other replied,
"Some sherbet," that courageous man did not hesitate, but
went as far as Alexandria to fetch some for the sick man.
The astonishing thing is that no-one knew about it.'

9. He also said that when Abba Macarius received all
the brethren in simplicity, some of them asked him why he
mixed with them like this. He replied, 'For twelve years I
served the Lord, so that he might grant me this gift, and do
you all advise me to give it up?'

10. They said about Abba Macarius that when he visited
the brethren he laid this rule upon himself, 'If there is wine,
drink some for the brethren's sake, but for each cup of wine,
spend a day without drinking water.' So the brothers would
offer him some refreshment, and the old man would accept it
joyfully to mortify himself; but when his disciple got to know
about it he said to the brethren, 'In the name of God, do not
offer him any more, or he will go and kill himself in his cell.'
When they heard that, the brethren did not offer him wine
any more.

Ciao!

+Tom