March 20 John, Sergius, and companions 796

Thommy and John,

Good morning
I love you

The waning hours of Sunday 3-29. Running out of March. The threats of April and closing in. But, tonight, I’m playing catchup with saints and sons….



March 20
John, Sergius, and companions 796


I didn’t find an elaboration about John or the companions beyond the catholic online blurb. Sergius has plenty of entries, including Tolstoy’s priest character - I recommend the book.

John et al. were a group of monks who resided in the eremetical monastery of St Sabas near Jerusalem. They were martyred by a band of Arabs who devastated the community.

Why would we have made these monks saints? And might Arab mean Islam? Ya think it was a crusade of sorts?

As an aside, from catholic encyclopedia…. the eremitical or solitary monasticism. St. Anthony may be called the founder of this type of monasticism.

This way of life took its rise among the monks who settled around St. Anthony's mountain at Pispir and whom he organized and guided. The strictest hermits lived out of earshot of each other and only met together for Divine worship on Saturdays and Sundays, while others would meet daily and recite their psalms and hymns together in little companies of three or four. There was no Rule of Life among them but, as Palladius says, "they have different practices, each as he is able and as he wishes". The elders exercised an authority, but chiefly of a personal kind, their position and influence being in proportion to their reputation for greater wisdom. The monks would visit each other often and discourse, several together, on Holy Scripture and on the spiritual life. General conferences in which a large number took part were not uncommon. Gradually the purely eremitical life tended to die out but a semi-eremitical form continued to be common for a long period, and has never ceased entirely either in East or West where the Carthusians and Camaldolese still practise it.

To be apart and remain a part - a different kind of strategy. And how do you play your part? Solitary and communal - both and.

Our faith, having faith, has its own language. Words do have meaning, finding a way to communicate with one another and moreso with God. Eremitical. Now that’s a word of faith, of religion. [we had communes when I was college age. Somewhat the same and not at all alike.]

I love you,
dad