Macrina the Younger

Love is first among all the activities connected with virtue and all the commandments of the law. If, therefore, the soul ever attains this love, it will need none of the others, having reached the fullness of its being. It seems that love alone preserves in itself the character of the divine blessedness. And knowledge becomes love because what is known is by nature beautiful.

The seed does not germinate unless it is dissolved in the earth, rarefied and made for us, so that it is mixed with the moisture nearby and dust changes into root and sprout, and it does not stop there but changes into a stalk with sections in between which are surrounded by chains, as it were, so as to be able to hold the grain in an upright position.… Thus the apostle says that the mystery of the resurrection is presignified before us in the miracles performed in the seeds. The divine power in its surpassing excellence not only gives back to see but adds many great and more wonderful features with which nature is magnificently adorned.

At her death Macrina prayed: “O Lord, you have freed us from the fear of death. You have made the end of life here the beginning of a true life for us. You give rest to our bodies in sleep, and you awaken us again with the last trumpet. The dust from which you fashioned us with your hands you give back to the dust of the earth for safe keeping, and you who have relinquished it will recall it after reshaping with incorruptibility and grace our mortal and graceless substance.” … As she said this, she made the sign of the cross upon her eyes and mouth and heart, and little by little, as the fever dried up her tongue, she was no longer able to speak clearly. Her voice gave out and only from the trembling of her lips and motion of her hands did we know that she was continuing to pray. Then the evening came on and the lamp was brought in.… When she had completed the thanksgiving and indicated that the prayer was over by making the sign of the cross, she breathed a deep breath and with the prayer her life came to an end.

It is more agreeable to remain silent on such questions and to consider their foolish and irreverent assumptions unworthy of a response, since the divine words forbid it, saying, “Answer not a fool according to his folly.” But the fool, according to the prophet, is “the one who says there is no God.”