Berkeley, Monday, November 24, 2025 00:51 AM
Feast Day: December 5.
https://bigccatholics.blogspot.com/2017/12/st-sabbas-sanctified-patriarch-of-monks.html
Structure:
Prayer for Saint Sabbas intersection after the rosary.
Mention each day one of his gifts. Then pray a prayer from the link above, might be or write one.
Day 1: Saint Sabbas : Born in the 5th century, son of devout parents, became mentor and shepherd of many desert monks.
Day 2: Saint Sabbas : Lived in a cave (for several years of his life).
Day 3: Saint Sabbas : Founder of about seven monasteries in Palestine, including Mar Saba Monastery.
Day 4: Saint Sabbas, Nov 29: Alumnus from Euthymius the Great.
Day 5: Saint Sabbas, Nov 30: Saint Sabbas. V.T. I haven’t read and listened more about you to provide you with a brief title. I even skip this day your novena. But I cannot offer either to do something else, rather than write a brief reflection.
When did the monastic culture started in the Catholic Church? Of course we have the Dessert Father from Egypt’s monasteries.
Day 6: Saint Sabbas, Dec 1: Another digression from focusing on you Saint Sabbas. But Thank You for serving the Lord. And thank you to the Lord to remind us of His presence through Saints and Angels generation after generation. Were you a hermit? How many things the Lord built through you? Why do we still remember your name after about 1,500 years since when you were alive. Thus, through the grace of Our Lord, and your grace, and the grace of the Church, you have reached eternal life. Why do we not remember you that often? Saint Sabbas pray for us.
Day 7: Saint Sabbas, Dec 2: There are doubters of our Lord presence on earth, but you were there about 450 years after He ascended. Faith really has growth like a vine, through the direction of the Holy Spirit. How were the times before you Saint Sabbas. Why do we call the place were our Lord, several prophets, and even you walked the Holy Land? How to prepare oneself to visit it, Saint Sabbas?
Day 8: Saint Sabbas, Dec 3: Student and Disciple from St. Theostitus and Saint Euthymus.
Day 9: Saint Sabbas, Dec 4: Saint Sabbas. Pray For Us. About a century after your dead, Saint John Damascene joined the monastery you founded. He became a monk, priest and Doctor of the Church.
Intersection
Prayer
Saint Sabbas pray for us. ask the Lord and the Holy Spirit to teach us discipline, to become His disciples, if that is His will. Do not lead into temptations. Help us to increase our love, faith, charity, and understanding of the Lord, and of life, eternal life, and salvation. What is a Saint? What is Sainthood? What is free will?
Relevant Locations:
Miracle reflections:
For the first day of St. Savvas’s novena, I have been reading a text published by Dr. Ganson (October 2018). What follows is simply a reflection on the first two pages of the document. On the very first page, there is an icon of St. Savvas carrying what seems to be a monastery, probably the one he founded, as a sign of his care for it. Around the central image there are also smaller scenes that depict episodes from his life or perhaps the monasteries he established during his lifetime.
In the introduction, it is interesting to learn that his family tried to dissuade him from pursuing a monastic life. This reminds me in some way of Saint Thomas Aquinas, though the temptations and hardships Aquinas faced were perhaps more intense. Later in the narrative of St. Savvas’s legacy, the text notes that his monastery was not the first in Palestine, but it was likely the most important. In fact, he founded seven monasteries throughout Palestine. Isn’t that an impressive number? The most famous of them is Mar Sabas, located southeast of Jerusalem and directly east of Bethlehem. Here is a picture of it: https://excellencenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Mar-Saba-.jpeg. And just reading very briefly about this place, it even shows that St. Savvas’s relics are kept there! Such a beautiful place.
But the reflection that stays with me most is the section where Savvas is compared to his spiritual mentor, St. Euthymios the Great. The text portrays the master as the one who sows the seed and Savvas as the one who nurtures the young plants, uprooting the weeds, hoeing, cutting, pruning, and bringing the garden to full bloom. Is that not a parallel to the relationship between the cousins John the Baptist and Jesus? I do not mean to compare St. Savvas to Christ, of course, but isn’t it true that our role is to evangelize and bring the Good News of God to everyone? And beyond that, isn’t it also our calling to continue building on what others have already begun?
So the final question for me is this: how do I apply all of this to my own life, whether today or tomorrow? Dear Jesus, what do you want me to learn from St. Savvas’s way of life? His story leaves me with many questions. How could someone so young already know that he was called to monastic life? Were the times simply different, or was his inner relationship with You so strong from the very beginning that his mission became clear to him early on? How does a person gain such certainty about his vocation? Perhaps it was the depth of St. Savvas’s love for you that stirred in him a desire to follow you wholeheartedly and to draw others closer to you through the founding of monasteries. And then I wonder: am I, in my own way, building upon the foundations laid by my friends, my family, my spiritual guides? Am I helping to bring others closer to you? I am not sure. Perhaps I need to pray more, Lord, and ask you to make the mission you brought upon me clearer.
St. Savvas, pray for us 🙏🏻
https://commons.datacite.org/doi.org/10.7274/24723048
https://www.stsabbas.org/our-patron-saint
Here are some pages from Butler’s Lives of the Saints, which although originally published in 1756. Those are from an edited version by Thurston, Herbert, and Donald Attwater, published by PJ Kenedy editorial in 1963.
It seems a reliable source with good references.
Bookmark: V.T.: p. 494 12/4/25 2:11 PM …manual labor. He left [top right of the page]
Discover more from Heart Pensees
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
