December: Day 31: Teaching 1: Venerable Melania the Roman

 

December: Day 31: Teaching 1:
Venerable Melania the Roman
 
(Lessons From Her Life:
a. Abstinence,
b. Philanthropy, and
c. Zeal for the Salvation of Others)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable Melania, who today is being glorified, was the granddaughter of Melania the Elder (commemorated on June 8), famous for her piety, under whose influence she herself was confirmed in piety. From childhood she loved God with all her soul, felt no attachment to the world and not only did not exalt herself, but did not even value the advantages of her position as the heiress of the richest and one of the most renowned families of the Roman Empire. Marriage also did not attract her and only for the sake of obedience to the will of her parents she married, when she was 14 years old, the son of the prefect of Italy and Africa, Valerius Pinianus, who was equal to her in origin and wealth.

Having lost two children, Pinianus and Melania took this grief as an order from above to live for the one God, and guided by the instructions of their elderly grandmother Melania, who had arrived at that time from the East to visit her relatives in Rome, they finally changed their lives, began to sell their numerous estates and use the proceeds for philanthropic works, for the construction of churches and monasteries and for the ransom of captives. They themselves spent their lives in complete abstinence, in continuous labor, engaged, among other things, in the copying of books, the sale of which increased funds for charity.

Melania, after the death of her father, retired to one of her estates and devoted herself to prayerful labors in communion with several pious virgins, while Pinianus, her husband, lived in the company of thirty hermits.

This most rich Roman woman lived in such a cramped cell that it was barely possible to stand up and turn around. She slept on a mat for no more than two hours a day; ate food only once a week; devoted most of her time to prayer and studying the Holy Scriptures; read the Holy Scriptures even when she was doing something with her hands; and had a custom of reading the entire Bible three times every year.

Shortly before her death, Melania, having gone to Constantinople at the request of her uncle, the most noble and intelligent Volusian, who was there at the time, had the consolation of helping him convert to the faith of Christ, while until then even Blessed Augustine could not turn him away from paganism. She also returned the Nestorian heretics to the Church, confirmed the faithful in the faith, put to shame the false teachers, and from morning until evening talked about faith with those who doubted in matters of faith, being zealous for the salvation of her neighbors.

Before her death, Venerable Melania once again made veneration of all the holy places in the Holy Land, spending the day of the Nativity of Christ in Bethlehem. When she returned to her monastery, she fell ill and after receiving the Holy Mysteries, she died peacefully on December 31, 439, in her 57th year, filled with love for God and marked by countless good deeds to people by her ascetic life.

II. The life of Venerable Melania the Roman presents us with many instructive lessons.

a) Let us learn from her, first of all, concerning her wonderful abstinence in food and drink. If, following the example of the teacher Melania, we cannot limit our food consumption to one day a week, then in any case we can and must avoid destructive intemperance, remembering that the belly, weighed down by satiety, hangs like a weight over the wings of the spirit and pulls it to the ground, so that under all conditions it beats against the ground more than it soars to heaven.

"Take heed therefore to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be weighed down with over-indulgence and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly" (Luke 21:34).

"If the present purpose of food," says Saint Philaret the Metropolitan of Moscow, "is the maintenance and renewal of the bodily constitution, which in an imperceptible manner continually devours corruption; and the taste of food and the pleasantness of drink are given as means for this end, then every piece of food, in addition to satisfying hunger, eaten for the sake of taste, is a portion of gluttony; every sip of drink, after quenching thirst and after invigorating strength, used for pleasantness, belongs to the cup of drunkenness.

What are our tables, on which it is difficult to count the various kinds of food, difficult to guess their composition, difficult to remember the names of the various kinds of drink? Are they not cunningly woven nets that we set for each other to catch in gluttony, although sometimes very subtle, and in drunkenness, although apparently sober? And you will not notice how you pass from eating to gluttony, how the simple use of drink turns into drunkenness. You must diligently watch yourself. Pay attention to yourself.

Look up, unhappy worshipper of the belly, and if you cannot suddenly lift your eyes above yourself, stand straight before a mirror and see if the law against servility to the belly is not written on you? Do you not see that above your belly there is a breast in which lives the heart that desires good, that feels love; that above it still rises the head in which reigns the mind that contemplates truth, the reason that thinks about probabilities; that under both, as under heaven and earth is hell, the dark belly is cast down, having neither thought nor desire? Does it require much insight to notice that it should not rule over the higher regions, but be in service, in slavery, in contempt? If, on the contrary, you try more and more to please the stomach in what it blindly demands, you desire for it, you invent for it, then beware, lest it become stronger and taller than the head, and with its ugly heaviness begin to constrain and suppress the noblest actions of the mind and heart. Be attentive to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness.”

b) Let us further emulate, brethren, Venerable Melania the Roman in her love for Christian philanthropy.

The work of philanthropy to the poor, the needy, the homeless is highly valued by the Lord! He considers the good deed that we show them as a service to Himself. He deigns to call the homeless poor His least brethren, and for the temporary good deed to them on earth He grants His eternal kingdom to the benefactors. “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

Another may ask: why does the Lord value so highly philanthropy to the poor, the needy, the homeless? Because on the one hand it is an imitation of the boundless love of God, and on the other it is necessary to ease the lot of those of our neighbors who, by the inscrutable ways of Providence, bear the heavy yoke of poverty.

"God is love" (1 John 4:8). All the qualities and actions of God are expressions and, so to speak, garments of His love. And who will doubt this? Perhaps he who has never thought about the world or about himself; perhaps he who deliberately closes his eyes so as not to see the full breadth and depth of God's mercies, manifested in our lives and throughout the world. We are, one might say, immersed in God's blessings; God's love embraces us on all sides, like the air we breathe. If so, then who is closer to God, who is more pleasing to Him, if not people who resemble Him in their love for those who especially need it for their existence? All people have the image of God, but only those who resemble God in Christian compassion for those in need of help, who show mercy to the poor and homeless, according to their ability, act in the image of God.

When we pay attention to the state of the poor, the destitute, the homeless, another bright side of philanthropy will open up for us.

To be in need of daily food, to have no permanent home, or, having some shelter, to suffer an extreme lack of clothing and other everyday needs with the impossibility of satisfying the mind by one's own labor - this is a great grief. And in the world how many people are in poverty for various reasons! Next to wealth, next to abundance in everything, you encounter a bitter need that involuntarily shakes your heart.

“They say rightly: poverty is not a vice; it is even a good school for self-improvement. But it is also true that extreme poverty often leads to vices. How many have the willpower to endure great need in everything with Christian patience, and to bear their cross without complaint to the grave? Do we not meet people who, because of homelessness, decide to commit crimes that they would never have thought of in a better state? Do we not see that those deprived of the means of life often fall into despair and decide on terrible crimes? Give them a helping hand in time, provide them with occupations that would provide them with a way to prevent deprivation of essential needs, develop in them a sense of moral duty, show them the way to honest work, and you will make honest workers and useful members of society. You are thus fulfilling the duty of Christian love, without which all your virtues are worthless.” (See “Words and Speeches” of Leonty, Archbishop of Warsaw, vol. 1)

c) Let us finally, brethren, imitate Venerable Melania the Roman in her zeal for the salvation of her neighbors.

Our time and especially our fatherland, in which so many schismatics and sectarians have fallen away from the true Church, presents a broad field for this. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. A true Christian, imbued with holy evangelical love, cannot be indifferent to the sight of the eternal destruction of his neighbors. He must, with his life, his word, and his pen, assist in converting his erring brothers to the path of truth, helping those shepherds of the Church who cannot always and everywhere strike at lies and error themselves, often busy with the urgent affairs of their pastoral activity in the place indicated to them.

If all Orthodox Christians remembered the words of the Apostle: "Build up each one his neighbor," i.e., take care each of you for the salvation of your neighbor (1 Cor. 10:33), and the words of Saint John Chrysostom that if they "set everything right, but do not benefit their neighbor, they will not enter the kingdom of heaven" (on 1 Cor. 10:33), and the words of Blessed Theophylact that "God wants everyone to instruct and build up another," then there would not be so many Orthodox Christians deceived by heresies and their various teachings. Is it conceivable that the waves of the sea will not break against a granite rock? And can the dust driven by the wind not be scattered? And our enemies, in comparison with all of us, are truly nothing more than waves before a rock and dust before the wind. So, let us not delay, but let us all hasten to the aid of the Church and go out to meet our enemies. Let us call upon the grace of God for help and we will undoubtedly defeat them. And having conquered, let us make great joy in heaven, and we ourselves will receive the reward that the Lord promises to the victors. “To him that overcomes,” He says, “I will grant to sit with Me on My throne” (Rev. 3:21).

III. Through the prayers of Venerable Melania, adorned with abstinence, philanthropy, zeal for the salvation of her neighbors and other Christian virtues, may the Lord grant us grace-filled strength for every good and God-pleasing deed! 

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.