- Our Holy Mother Melania the Younger of Rome (439)
- She was born in 383 in Rome, to a very wealthy family with large
estates in Italy, Africa, Spain and even Britain. She was the grand-
daughter of St Melania the Elder (June 8) and a pious disciple of Christ
from a young age. She was married against her will at the age of
fourteen, to a relative named Ninian. They had two children, both of
whom died in early childhood. Henceforth Melania and her husband
dedicated themselves entirely to God. They had both dreamt of a high
wall that they would have to climb before they could pass through the
narrow gate that leads to life, and soon began to take measures to
dispose of their wealth. This aroused opposition from some of the
Senate, who were concerned that the selling off of such huge holdings
would disrupt the economy of the State itself.
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With the support of the Empress, though, Melania was able to free 8000
of her slaves and give each a gift of three gold pieces to begin life as
freedmen. She employed agents to help fund the establishment of
churches and monasteries throughout the Empire, donated many estates to
the Church, and sold many more, giving the proceeds as alms. When Rome
fell to the Goths under Alaric in 410, Melania and Ninian moved to
Sicily, then to Africa, where they completed the sale of their propery,
donating the proceeds to monasteries and to aiding victims of the
barbarians.
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In Africa Melania, now aged about thirty, took up a life of the
strictest asceticism: she
kept a total fast on weekdays, only eating on Saturday and Sunday; she
slept two hours a night,
giving the rest of the night to vigil and prayer. Her days were spent
in charitable works, using the remainder of her wealth to relieve the
poor and benefit the Church. After seven years in Africa, Melania, her
mother and her husband left on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There they
founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, which grew to a community of
ninety nuns. Melania'smother died in 431, then her husband and
spiritual brother Pinian; she buried them side by side.
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Save for one visit to Constantinople, Melania continued to live in
reclusion in a small cave on the Mount of Olives; she became an advisor
to the Empress Eudocia, who sought her expert counsel on her gifts to
churches and monasteries.
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Melania fell ill keeping the Vigil of Nativity in 439, and fell
asleep in the Lord six days later; her last words were 'As it has
pleased the Lord, so it has come to pass.' Her monastery was destroyed
in 614 by the Persians, but her cave hermitage on the Mount of Olives is
still a place of pilgrimage and veneration.
source: http://www.abbamoses.com
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