27 March 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

Our Holy Father Benedict

Born in Nursia in Italy in 480, of rich and eminent parents, he did not persevere long with his schooling, for he realised himself that he could, through book learning, lose `the great understanding of my soul’. And he left school `an untaught sage and an understanding ignoramus’. He fled to a monastery where a monk, Romanus, gave him the habit, after which he withdrew to a craggy mountain, where he lived for more than three years in a cave in great struggles with his soul. Romanus brought him bread and dropped it over the wall of the crag on a rope to the mouth of the cave. When he became known in the neighbourhood, he, to flee the praise of men, moved away from that cave. He was very brutal with himself. Once, when an impure rage of fleshly lust fell on him, he stripped bare and rolled among nettles and thorns until he had driven out of himself every thought of a woman. God endowed him with many spiritual gifts: insight, healing and the driving out of evil spirits, the raising of the dead and the ability to appear to others from a distance in a dream or vision. On the sixth day before his death he commanded that his grave, already prepared as the saint had foreseen that his end was near, should be opened. He gathered all the monks together, gave them counsel and gave his soul to the Lord whom he had faithfully served in poverty and purity. He died peacefully in about 550 and went to the eternal Kingdom of Christ the King.

Catholic Calendar

St. Philetus

Martyr with companions. Philetus was supposedly a senator who resided in the province of Illyria and was put to death during the persecution under Emperor Hadrian. He died with his family his wife Lydia, and his sons Maccdo and Theoprepius, a captain, Amphilochius, and a notary, Cronidas, also suffered martyrdom with Philetus. After they had undergone many tortures for confessing Christ, they gained the crown of glory.