THE VENERABLE PIOR

June 17

From the Prologue

Pior was a hermit [Silentary] in Nitria. Inflamed with love for God, Pior, at an early age, renounced the world and withdrew to the Egyptian wilderness where he heroically lived a life of asceticism. It is said that he never sat at the table to eat but that he always ate standing and working. When he was asked why he does this, St. Pior replied: "I do not want to be occupied with eating as an occupation but rather as something marginal." When they called him in council to judge a brother who had committed a sin, Pior arrived carrying a sack of sand on his back and on his chest a small bag of sand. Asked what does that mean, the saint replied: "The sack of sand on my back are my sins which I do not see and the bag of sand on my chest are the sins of my brother which I have to judge." All the brethren were then ashamed and cried out: "This is the path of salvation!" Pior lived to be a hundred years old and reposed in the Lord in the fourth century.

HYMN OF PRAISE

THE HOLY MARTYRS MANUEL, SABEL AND ISHMAEL

Of a Christian mother and a pagan father

Three blood brothers, wonderful peacemakers:

Manuel, Sabel and young Ishmael

Dead for Christ's sake, to earthly delight

To serve peace, voluntarily set out,

To unite in peace, the Persian and Greeks.

But Julian the cursed, servant of the devil,

Began to dispute with the three brothers about the Faith,

And offered the brothers, in Christ baptized,

To embrace his faith impure.

To the crowned beast, the brothers then replied:

To change our faith, for that reason we did not come,

But, peace to make, O emperor of the Greeks,

In the Son of God, we have faith.

The worse for the better can still be given

But better for worse, only the insane one can exchange.

The enraged emperor, in him, Hades burns,

In bitter torments, the three brothers slew.

But God the All-seeing, Who, the value of all knows

Against the evil emperor turned with anger;

Julian, the evil one, weak before God,

A shameful death died, everyone laughed,

Everyone laughed, who knew his pride

And through him, the weakness of injustice acknowledged.