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Venerable Hilarion the Great 11/3/2013
As roses grow on thorn trees, so this glorious Saint was born of pagan parents, in the village of Thabatha, not far from Gaza in Palestine. His parents sent him to pursue education in Alexandria, where as a talented boy he soon acquired both secular knowledge and spiritual wisdom. As soon as he discovered Christ and received holy Baptism, he desired to devout himself completely to service of God. With this desire in his heart he set out for the desert to visit Saint Anthony and became his disciple. Then he returned to his fatherland and lived in ascesis close to Maiuma, near Gaza. The demons tried to frighten him in many ways, but by prayer to God and the sign of the Cross he continually defeated them and drove them away. Many devotees to spiritual life gathered around him and Saint Hilarion became to represent for Palestine what Saint Anthony represented for Egypt. As a Divine teacher, unshakable ascetic and glorious wonderworker, Hilarion was respected not only by the Christians, but by the pagans as well. Yet, being afraid of the praise of men and saying to himself in tears:” Woe me, I have received my reward on earth!” he fled from place to place only to hide away from the people and his soul to remain alone with God. Thus, he settled and for some time he lived in Egypt, in Sicily, in Dalmatia, and at last on Cyprus, where he completed his life on earth around the year 372, when he was eighty years of age. His disciple Hesychius translated the miracle-working relics of Saint Hilarion to Palestine and laid them in the monastery he had founded.
