The Venerable Pior

June 17

Pior was a hermit in Nitria.  Inflamed with love for God, Pior renounced the world at an early age and withdrew into the Egyptian desert, where he heroically lived a life of asceticism.  It is said that he never sat at the table to eat but always ate standing and working.  When asked why he did this, St. Pior replied:  "I do not want to concern myself with eating as an occupation but rather as something marginal".  When they called him to a council to judge a brother who had committed a sin, Pior arrived carrying a sack of sand on his back and a small bag of sand on his chest.  Asked what it meant, the saint replied:  "The sack of sand on my back represents my sins, which I do not see, and the bag of sand on my chest represents the sins of my brother, whom I have to judge."  All the brethren were then ashamed and cried out:  "This is the path of salvation!"  Pior lived to be a hundred years old and reposed in the Lord in the fourth century.

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SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2017(with 2016's link here also and further: 2015,2014  2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and even 2008!):The Venerable Pi