Feasts of Nehasse 5
✞✞✞On this day we commemorate the departures of the Saints Abba Abraham, John the Soldier and Abba Filipos (Philip) of Debre Bizen✞✞✞
✞✞✞In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen!✞✞✞
✞✞✞ Abba Abraham an Honored Monastic✞✞✞
=>The Saint was one of the Egyptian stars (there are those that say he was from Edessa) that rose in the 4th century. His Christian parents raised him properly and then [when he grew up] asked him saying, “Espouse a wife.” If he answered them with a ‘Yes’, the monastic life, which he had wanted from childhood, was going to fade. And if he did not say ‘Yes’, he was going to disappoint his parents. Hence, holding what was in his heart, he gave them a response saying, “Okay.”
✞And after a banquet was prepared for the nuptials and the rites of holy matrimony were read, they wedded him to a Christian woman. However, on the next day, while still a virgin, he escaped and entered into a desert. There, he prepared a cell and lived for ten years exhausting his carnal desires and cultivating his spiritual ones.
✞And in all the ten years, he did not wear warm cloth nor consume sweet or palatable nourishments. He did not even see day light. And when the ten years drew near to completion, a messenger came to him and said, “Your parents have died. There is none left but your 6 years old sister and so inherit the wealth that they have left [to you].”
✞As Abba Abraham knew what to do; he left the desert and went to the city. Then, he returned to his cell after entrusting his sister (6 years old at the time) to his kinsfolk and giving all the wealth and property to the poor without withholding any. He then lived there as usual for ten more years engaged in prayer and fasting.
✞20 years after he started his strife, God called him for another service. The Archbishop of Egypt made Abba Abraham to be brought before him, and he ordained him a priest. Then, he instructed him, “Go and preach the Gospel.” The problem [with this] was that the city to which he was sent to, on top of being a place without any Christians, had inhabitants that were very cruel.
✞There was none who could speak boldly about God in that place. And when Abba Abraham entered the city and preached the Gospel to the residents, they pushed him to the ground, beat him and broke up his bones as they habitually did [to others]. Then, as they had thought that he was dead, they threw him out of the city.
✞But he rose strengthened by the power of his Creator. And as he had realized that teaching alone would not be the solution, he started praying diligently. And when the gentiles came in the morning, they found him praying in the middle of the municipality. And because they were infuriated, they again broke him up with sticks and dragged him out of the city. There, they buried him alive.
✞Nevertheless, they found him the next morning praying in the same place. As they did not realize that this was being done for them, 10 years passed while they beat and tortured him and he prayed daily. In the end, as saints do not give up, he became successful.
✞The prayers of the Saint bore fruit and God removed for him the demons that had dwelt in the hearts of the gentiles. One-day morning, all the people (men, women, young and old) of the city came to the place where the Saint prayed. He thought that it was for violence but all of them together prostrated before him. And they beseeched him so he would forgive them.
✞When the Saint saw this, he became joyous. He baptized them all in the name of the Holy Trinity and built Churches for them. However, later on, as he had seen them love and honor him greatly, he wanted to depart from vainglory. And he pleaded God to protect them with His mercy and fled to the desert which he had dwelt in previously.✞And in the desert, where he lived, he used to think about his sister, Maria, so he sent for her. He then asked her, “What do you want?” And as she replied, “To be like you”, after teaching and testing her, he made her a nun.
