Saint Who?
Saints Who Had Family Challenges
Saint Macrina the Younger
Religious († 379)Feast: July 19
Macrina’s grandparents only managed to survive the Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the Church by hiding in the forest near Pontus (modern Turkey) with their children. Even though they almost died of starvation, they did not renounce their faith. It’s therefore not surprising that Macrina, her parents, and four of her ten siblings are now revered as saints.
Macrina, as the eldest, became a second mother to the younger children when their father died. When one of her brothers—the future Saint Basil the Great—came home from school, he was a bit too full of himself, so she took it upon herself to instill in him the importance of humility.
Macrina had been betrothed at the age of twelve, as was typical at the time, but when her fiancé died, she gave up all plans for marriage. After her siblings were grown, she and her mother joined a religious community of women that Basil had established. Years later, her brother Saint Gregory (of Nyssa) heard that she was seriously ill and came to comfort her. She, of course, comforted him, and they spent her final days speaking of God. Gregory wrote to a friend about how cheerful she was until the very end, despite her poverty, and he mourned, as the other nuns did, the passing of a woman of great faith.
Loving Father, show us how to correct
one another with gentleness.
