{"id":1080,"date":"2020-12-09T13:39:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2020-12-09T13:40:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T19:40:57","slug":"st-macarius-and-the-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/12\/09\/st-macarius-and-the-skull\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Macarius and the Skull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>St. Macarius the Great ca. 300-391<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Abba Macarius said, \u2018Walking in the desert one day, I found the skull of a dead man, lying on the ground. As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me. I said to it, \u201cWho are you?\u201d The skull replied, \u201cI was high priest of the idols and of the pagans who dwelt in this place; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer. Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite.\u201d The old man said to him, \u201cWhat is this alleviation, and what is this torment?\u201d He said to him, \u201cAs far as the sky is removed from the earth, so great is the fire beneath us; we are ourselves standing in the midst of the fire, from the feet up to the head. It is not possible to see anyone face to face, but the face of one is fixed to the back of another. Yet when you pray for us, each of us can see the other\u2019s face a little. Such is our respite.\u201d The old man in tears said, \u201cAlas the day when that man was born!\u201d He said to the skull, \u201cAre there punishments which are more painful than this?\u201d The skull said to him, \u201cThere is a more grievous punishment down below us.\u201d The old man said, \u201cWho are the people down there?\u201d The skull said to him: \u201cWe have received a little mercy since we did not know God, but those who know God and denied Him are down below us.\u201d Then, picking up the skull, the old man buried it.\u00a0<em>(The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, The Alphabetical Collection:Macarius the Great, 38. )<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Macarius the Great ca. 300-391 Abba Macarius said, \u2018Walking in the desert one day, I found the skull of a dead man, lying on the ground. As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me. I said to it, \u201cWho are you?\u201d The skull replied, \u201cI was high priest of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bryannoe.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}