NEBAB #53: The Great Fast: Mkurab
NEBAB #53
The Orthodox Tewahedo Magazine
THE GREAT FAST (LENT)
WEEK 3: MKURAB
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Archdiocese of the Caribbean and Latin America
Clean yourself of the things that don't belong in your mind. Write down your unkind or unclean thoughts, so you are forced to confront them. Remind yourself that these thoughts are the things that defile the house of God, and remove them.
God teaches us about the whip in the Wisdom of Sirach 23:2-4
"Who will set whips over my thoughts? And the discipline of wisdom over my heart? That they spare me not for my ignorances and it pass not by my sins. Lest my ignorances increase and my sins abound to my destruction, and I fall before my adversaries, and my enemy rejoices over me, whose hope is far from Your mercy. O Lord, Father and God of my life, give me not a proud look, but turn away Your servants always from a haugty mind."
A miracle of Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, may her prayer and her blessing be with her servant Lebna Dengel forever and ever, amen.
There was a Christian man living in one of the cities of the region of Giza near Egypt. The city was called Meneta Diyaqonat [the Monastery of the Deacon]. That man truly loved Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin, and celebrated her feast every time he delighted the poor, needy, and impoverished with food and drink fit for a feast. He brought together his family and neighbors. With abundant love he then prepared for them a great feast. There was a Muslim near him who served him for a wage to fulfil all his material needs.
On each feast of Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin, on the third of the month of Tahsas, that is to say her entrance into the temple, the Christian man went inside the sanctuary of the church and, having received holy Communion, he returned to his house. He then celebrated the feast and gave food and drink without measure to the poor, needy, and impoverished for the sake of the name of Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin. He celebrated the feast more grandly than he had celebrated before.
When the day became night, he gathered his relatives and neighbors as he had done before. He gave them a lot of wine to drink. It was very cold that night, and the wind was strong, along with a lot of rain. There was a large lantern hanging in the middle of the house. In addition, he would also light in front of them white wax candles, having topped them with silver-adorned red brass scissors.
As for the Muslim man whom we have mentioned before [and] who served the Christian man for a wage, he would stand before him as he was used to doing.
The assembled sat together with great joy and abundant love, while eating and drinking, praising Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin, and recounting her miracles.
While they were doing this, the wax burned from a great wind, and the wind melted the wax as it was blowing this way and that.
Someone among the assembled took the scissors to cut the wick and fix the candle. But at that moment the mighty win[d] extinguished the candle. So he got up from his place and brought down the lantern, lighting it so that it would shine. But wax fell from it and extinguished the candle.
After the master of the house saw this, he told the Muslim man who served him to go and light a candle for him. The Muslim man was sad [because of the great storm raging outside], but he could not transgress an order of his employer.
When he received that candle into his hand, he said, “Look now, you all see the strength of the wind and the abundance of the rain, and it is increasing in this night and at this very hour. If I go out and light a candle, the great strength of the wind and the abundance of the rain will extinguish it for me. Then you will be disappointed with me [afterwards]. But if this Virgin has power, the Virgin whose feast you are celebrating, [for whom] you have gathered the people with worship and praise, so now may power and a miracle be revealed by her with the lighting of this candle that you have given me to light.”
While he was saying this in front of them, the candle that was in his hands lit at once, as did the lantern that was hanging in the house.
When the assembled saw this, they marveled and were amazed, and they cried out, saying, “Peace to you, O Virgin Mary, O Mother of Embodied Light. For you have illuminated the world by the birth of your beloved son, and you have saved Adam and his seed from the hand of cursed Satan. You caused the light of your son, which does not go out, to shine over all of us, wicked ones.”
They rejoiced greatly.
That Muslim man told all the Muslims the miracle of Our Lady Mary, the Holy Virgin—that is, how she lit the candle that was in his hand, and also the lantern. When the Muslims heard this from him, they marveled and praised God and his mother, the Virgin.
May her intercession preserve her servant Lebna Dengel forever and ever, amen.
Miracle of Mary: https://pemm.princeton.edu/en-us/stories/28
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