A daily drop of wisdom from the men and women who turned to the desert for spiritual testing and transformation on their journey toward God.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Cool as a Cucumber
They said of one hermit that he sometimes longed to eat a cucumber. So he took one and hung it in front of him where he could see it. He was not overcome by his longing, and did not eat it, but tamed himself and repented that he had wanted it at all.
Born about 380 A.D. in Alexandria, Egypt, to a well-respected Christian family of Macedonian heritage, Syncletica was well-educated and was said to be beautiful. When her parents died, she sold all her possessions, cut her hair as a sign of consecration and moved with her blind sister to the family tomb outside Alexandria to begin her life of ascesis. Women soon began to gather around her and she agreed to be their spiritual mentor.
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