There was once a monk who wished to be martyred

[Mary Naeem]

By H.H. Pope Shenouda III



 There was once a monk who wished to be martyred. He was advised not to leave the monastery but despite the advice not to go down this route he refused and he stubbornly went out. He entered the wilderness and there he found a group of Bedouin camped who spotted him and brought him to the camp, and these Bedouin were cannibals, and they planned to do horrible things to him before they chopped him up and ate him. The man began to shake, and became very scared. He remembered the advice of his spiritual father and how he told him to stay away from this path. He started praying that God would save him from these people. If it weren’t for a large group of armed merchants arriving on the scene he would not have lived. The Bedouin escaped, but by the time the Bedouin escaped his nerves had escaped and he was found by the merchants a nervous wreck. Therefore do not think that martyrdom is an easy thing. 




We are also in the beginning of a new Coptic Year, in this new year we pray for a good beginning, and we advice that you should take at least one virtue and train your self in it. Take the virtue of long-suffering for example. Train yourself to accept bad word from others against you or the insult of others and so on.