The Life of St. Melania (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "The Life of St. Melania (en Inglés)"
Let us consider this excerpt: " One day the Saint, taking Pinianus aside, began tenderly and respectfully to question him. What she asked was whether carnal love had still any place in his heart, whether it ever occurred to him now to think of her as a wife. Pinianus, with a smiling face, and full of the joy of the Lord, answered her cheerily, Happy art thou to love thy husband after such sort. Be satisfied on my account, quite satisfied in our Lord, that ever since we made together our promise to God, I have had just the same feeling for thee as for Albina, thy saintly mother.' On hearing these words Melania kissed him upon the breast and upon the hands, and gave glory to God for this firm resolution. But a few days afterwards, anxious that he should always advance in perfection, she said to him again; 'Pinianus, my lord, listen to me as a mother, as thy spiritual sister; lay aside these costly Cilician robes, dress thyself in more sober fashion.' Like the boy that he was, Pinianus, on hearing this, was rather cast down, but in order that he might not see her look unhappy, and knowi ng that all was done for God and for his own eternal welfare, he assented with a good grace, and began to dress in the cheaper garments of Antioch. But Melania, like a busy bee, was eager to add flower to flower on his behalf. She pressed him to adopt an even coarser dress, and this in fact he did. Eventually his clothes cost no more than a gold piece, or two thirds of a gold piece, and Melania fashioned them for him herself out of the cheapest natural wool without dye of any sort." After sketching the condition of Rome at the end of the fourth century, during which time Saint Melania lived, we get into her personal story. "But this great solicitude of her parents, which, however affectionate it may have been, was yet purely human, was the cause of great torture to the innocent girl. Melania was not, like so many noble Roman ladies of the time, a convert to Christianity. She had never tasted the bitter fruit of Roman corruption. She came into the world with an instinctive hatred of those infamous customs which were the canker then eating out the heart of primitive Roman society. Her pure angelic soul revolted from the licentious manners which held sway around her. From her earliest years, the love of God completely filled her heart. She herself on her death-bed declared that in early childhood she had consecrated herself wholly to Christ. Providence, which had implanted these desires in the girl's heart, did not permit them to remain barren. ..." Saint Melania's life in this time is an inspiration to all of us who live these days of perversion. She rose to the heights of sanctity, inspiring her mother and husband to join with her.
