Meskerem 3 — September 13

The Great Meeting of Church Fathers

On this day, long ago, many church leaders came together in the city of Alexandria. The leader who called the meeting was a kind and wise father named Abba Dionysius. He was an archbishop, which means a leader who takes care of many churches.

Some people had started to teach something that was not true. They said that when a person dies, the soul goes to sleep and dies too. Your soul is the real you that God made, the part of you that loves and thinks and prays. This made Abba Dionysius very sad, and he gently asked the people to change their minds.

When they would not listen, all the church fathers met and talked it through together. Abba Dionysius taught them the truth: our soul never dies. It is alive forever, like the angels. When we leave this world, God takes our soul to be with Him. And one day God will wake up everyone, and we will be with Him in joy.

He wrote down this beautiful, comforting truth so we would always remember it.

The love of God for the children is exceedingly great and mighty.— Abba Dionysius

The Church of Saint Michael at Dasya

On this day, a long time ago, the ground shook hard in the land of Egypt. We call that kind of shaking an earthquake. A church named after Michael the archangel, in a place called Dasya, fell down.

There is a story that an unkind man wanted the Christians to give him money, and when they would not, he knocked the church down. That made people very sad. But Saint Michael the archangel is a strong helper who watches over God's people, and the church kept Michael's name in honor.

Even when something we love is broken, God is still with us. We ask Saint Michael to pray for us and keep us safe.

The Brave Friends of God

We remember some brave friends of God too. There was Dioscoros, who stayed faithful to Jesus to the very end. That is what it means to be a martyr: to keep loving God even when it costs you your life.

We remember the good archbishop Dionysius again, and other faithful people in a place called Tensel Yakoton, and many faithful people far away in the land of Persia. They all loved God with their whole hearts and were not afraid, because they knew they were going home to God. We ask them to pray for us.

Abba 'Anbes, Father Lion of Ethiopia

On this day a holy man from Ethiopia went to be with God. His name was Abba 'Anbes, which means Father Lion. A lion is strong and brave, and Abba 'Anbes was brave and strong in loving God. We thank God for this good father from our own land.

Abba Muse of the Desert

A holy man named Abba Muse (we say it MOO-seh, which means Moses) also went home to God on this day. When he was young, he left the busy world and went to live alone in the quiet desert to pray. He became a monk, spending his whole life close to God in prayer.

Abba Muse prayed and prayed, and God gave him a special gift. God showed him a beautiful garden of olive and palm trees, and Abba Muse ate just a tiny bit of fruit each month, about as much as a little bird eats! His clothes were made from palm leaves. The hot summers and cold winters did not stop him from praying.

The wild animals of the desert became his friends. They would come and visit him. When it was time to pray, he would wave his hand, and they would gently go away. And when the animals were thirsty, God let Abba Muse know, and he would pray, and rain would come down for them. He lived this happy life for thirty-five years.

One day an evil spirit tried to trick Abba Muse and lead him away from his quiet life. For a while Abba Muse was fooled, and he felt lost and very sorry. He fell down and cried out to God for help. And God heard him right away! God sent a kind angel who said, "Your sin is forgiven." God is always ready to forgive us when we say we are sorry.

Then a holy friend named Abba Samuel came and gave Abba Muse peace and took him to a quiet church in the desert. There they prayed together, and Abba Muse knelt down and went peacefully home to God. Abba Samuel buried him and wrote down his story so we could remember him.

Your sin is forgiven. In three days you shall come home to God.— an angel, to Abba Muse