SAINTS OF THE DAY

SATURDAY, 16 MARCH, 2024

SAINTS ABRAHAM AND MARY

About the Year 360

St. Abraham was born at Chidana, in Mesopotamia, near Edessa, of wealthy and noble parents. His parents, after giving him a most virtuous education, were desirous of getting him married. In obedience, Abraham took a wife who was pious and a noble virgin. Since he earnestly desired to live and die in the state of holy virginity, as soon as the marriage ceremony and feast were over, having made known his resolution to his new bride, he secretly withdrew to a cell two miles from the city of Edessa.

His friends found him at prayer after a search, of seventeen days. By earnest entreaties he obtained their consent to continue his life. He walled up the cell-door, leaving only a small window through which he received his food. There for fifty years he sang God's praises and implored mercy for himself and for all men. The wealth which fell to him on his parents' death he gave to the poor.

Many resorted to him for spiritual advice, whom he exceedingly comforted and edified by his holy discourses. The Bishop of Edessa, in spite of his humility, ordained him priest. St. Abraham was sent, soon after his ordination, to an idolatrous city which had hitherto been deaf to every messenger. He was insulted, beaten, and three times banished, but he returned each time with fresh zeal. For three years he pleaded with God for those souls, and in the end prevailed. Every citizen came to him for Baptism. After providing for their spiritual needs he went back to his cell more than ever convinced of the power of prayer.

His brother dying soon after his return thither, left an only daughter, called Mary, whom the saint undertook to train up in a religious life. For this purpose he placed her in a cell near his own, where, by the help of his instructions, she became eminent for her piety and penance. At the end of twenty years she was unhappily seduced by a wolf in sheep's clothing, a wicked monk; who resorted often to the place under colour of receiving advice from her uncle.

Hereupon falling into despair, Mary went to a distant town, where she gave herself up to the most criminal disorders. The saint ceased not for two years to weep and pray for her conversion. Being then informed where she dwelt, he dressed himself like a citizen of that town, and going to the inn where she lived in the pursuit of her evil courses desired her company with him at supper. When he saw her alone, he took off his cap which disguised him, and with many tears said to her: “Daughter Mary, don't you know me? What is now become of your angelical habit, of your tears and watchings in the divine praises?”.

Seeing her struck and filled with horror and confusion, he tenderly encouraged her and comforted her, saying that he would take her sins upon himself if she would faithfully follow his advice, and that his friend Ephrem also prayed and wept for her. She with many tears returned him her most hearty thanks, and promised to obey in all things his injunctions. He set her on his horse, and led the beast himself on foot.

There she spent the remaining fifteen years of her life in continual tears, and the most perfect practices of penance and other virtues. Almighty God was pleased within three years after her conversion, to favour her with the gift of working miracles by her prayers. And as soon as she was dead, “her countenance appeared to us,” says St. Ephrem, “so shining, that we understood that choirs of angels had attended at her passage out of this life into a better one,”

St. Abraham died five years before her: at the news of whose sickness, almost the whole city and country flocked to receive his benediction. When he had expired, every one strove to procure for themselves some part of his clothes, and St. Ephrem, who was an eye-witness, relates, that many sick were cured by the touch of these relics.

Excerpted from Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

ST. ABRAHAM & ST. MARY: PRAY FOR US