Lives Of The Saints
December 5
St Sabas
Sabas is a desert saint in the fullest sense: hidden, practical, severe, and fatherly. He wanted silence, but men kept finding him, and so the solitary became a founder whose influence reached even emperors.
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St Sabas
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Brief life
Sabas is one of the great patriarchs of Palestinian monasticism. As a child he fled family disputes into the monastery, and after years of formation went to Jerusalem, where he was directed by St Euthymius and gradually drawn into the harder life of the desert.
He lived for a time in a cave above the Cedron, supporting himself by manual labor, but disciples gathered round him and at last forced him into the role of founder and guide of the Great Laura. This life follows him through the whole mature arc of the life: long solitude, government of monks, internal disputes, journeys to emperors, defense of orthodoxy, and a peaceful old age in which austerity and authority had become inseparable.
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Nearby saint lives
Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.
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Carry this saint into prayer
A direct related novena is not surfaced for this saint yet, but the broader library is ready if you want to move from reading into prayer.