📜Saint Sabbas, born in Cappadocia in 439, stands in the history of the Church as one of the fundamental patriarchs of Palestinian monasticism and a bulwark of Christian orthodoxy. Drawn from his tender youth to the solitary life, he withdrew to the Judean desert, where he became a disciple of Saint Euthymius, distinguishing himself by rigorous asceticism and a deep life of contemplative prayer. Founder of the "Great Lavra" (Mar Saba), a monastery nestled in the Kidron Valley that endures to this day, Sabbas organized liturgical and monastic life through the "Typikon," influencing divine worship throughout the East and West. He was appointed archimandrite of all the hermits of Palestine and fought vigorously against the Monophysite heresy, defending the definitions of the Council of Chalcedon before Emperor Anastasius in Constantinople, dying in holiness in the year 532.
📖Epistle (Sir 45:1-6)
He was beloved of God and men, whose memory is in benediction. He made him like the Saints in glory, and magnified him in the fear of his enemies, and with his words he made peace to cease. He glorified him in the sight of kings, and gave him commandments in the sight of his people, and showed him his glory. He sanctified him in his faithfulness and meekness, and chose him out of all flesh. For he heard him and his voice, and brought him into a cloud. And he gave him commandments before his face, and a law of life and instruction.
✠Gospel (Mt 19:27-29)
At that time, Peter said to Jesus: Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen, I say to you, that you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.
💎The Glory of Renunciation and Spiritual Paternity in the Desert
🔥The liturgy of today establishes a profound mystical connection between the figure of Moses, the lawgiver of the Old Covenant, and the vocation of the Christian abbot, magnificently personified in Saint Sabbas. Just as Moses "entered into the cloud" to receive the Law of Life, the monk enters the cloud of unknowing and the aridity of the desert to, in the total renunciation described in the Gospel, find the fullness of the divine presence. Christ's promise regarding the "day of regeneration" is not merely a remote eschatological hope, but a reality that begins to be savored in the contemplative life: by leaving "house, brethren, and lands," the holy abbot does not become sterile but acquires an overwhelming spiritual fruitfulness, receiving the hundredfold in this life in the form of a numerous spiritual family and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Saint Augustine, meditating on this apostolic reward, teaches that "the hundredfold is the consolation of the present life, and the possession of eternal life is the future glory; the hundredfold is the joy of the Holy Spirit, which is much sweeter than all carnal pleasures" (Saint Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 103). Saint Sabbas, like Moses, was "sanctified in his faithfulness and meekness," virtues essential for one who governs souls, showing that true authority in the Church—the "judging of the tribes"—is born of radical divestment and conformity to the poor and obedient Christ, as exhorted by the evangelical counsels reaffirmed by the Catechism as a path of perfection.
🇺🇸See English version of the critical articles here.
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