Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 2.djvu/14

2 ST. MACRONE Eldest daughter of SS. Basil and Emily (1). Sister of SS. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter of Sebaste. She was bom at Ceesarea in Cappadocia ; she was yery carefully bronght up by St. Emily, and before she was twelve years old she knew all the Psalms by heart, besides other portions of the Holy Scriptures. As she was rich and remarkably beautiful, she had many snitors and her father betrothed her to a young man of distinction ; but he died and she chose to remain single and lead a life of devotion ^nth her mother, working with her hands that she might have the more to give to the poor. She exercised a powerful and salu- tary influence over her family. On her father's death she relieved her mother of all care and trouble, managing the estate and settling her four sisters in suitable marriages. In 357 she shared to the full her mother's grief for the death of Naucratius and comforted her with her sympathy and courage. (See Emily (1).) She brought up her youngest brother, St. Peter of Sebaste, who was born after his fSather's death. She avoided teaching him profSEme knowledge useless to his salvation, and so regulated all his time that he had no leisure for vain or puerile occupations. He grew up wise and saintly and in 379 was found worthy to succeed his brother, St Basil the Great, in the government of the monas- tery founded by their mother, St. Emily. Macrina ruled the sister house, instituted at the same time for women. A few months after the death of her brother Basil she fell ill. St. Gregory of Nyssa, who had been absent eight years, arrived to pay her a visit and found her in a raging fever, lying on two boards on the ground. Although she was at the point of death, they had, a long convei*sation concerning their lately deceased brother Basil, the future life, the resurrection, and the purifying by fire after death. She thanked God for His many mercies to her, and that amid her greatest poverty she had never been compelled to refuse any one who begged of her, nor to beg of others for herself. She died that night and they found that she had a band round her nock from which hung a cross and a ring. Gregory gave the cross to Yestina, one of the nuns, but the ring, which contained a little piece of the cross of Christ, he kept for him- self. Such was the poverty of the house, that nothing could be found to cover the corpse of its mistress on the way to the grave ; her saintly brother spread his episcopal mantle over it. B.M. Butler. Baillet, " St. Peter of Sebaste." Smith and Wace. There is a church dedicated to St. Macrina at Hassakeni, one of the curious subterranean villages in Cappadocia. The local tradition is that she came there with ten virgins from Cffisarea and lived in one of the rock-hewn houses with which the ground is riddled ; they are of great antiquity, most of them are Christian, but some are older still. Each of the little hovels above ground has subterranean rooms under it, the passage to which is closed by a cheese- shaped stone that can only be opened from inside. The AthenBeumf Aug. 5, 1882. St. Macrone, March 15, M. at Thessalonica, beaten to death. Mart, of Salisbury. St. Mactaflede, March 13, 7th cen- tury (Mactefledis, Madeflede, Maode- FLEDB, Magdefrede, iu French Mafl^e), first abbess of Habend. About G20 St Bomaric and St. Amatus (Sept. 13) founded a double monastery on the hill of Habend in the Vosges. They chose Mactefiede, a woman of great sanctity, to preside over the nuns, in seven bands of twelve each ; they were to succeed each other in singing psalms without cessation day and night. She ruled for two years and was succeeded by Gego- 6ERGA, daughter of Eoraaric. The com- munity was at first under the Columban rule and afterwards adopted that of St. Benedict. The monastery was destroyed by Huns in the loth century and rebuilt, for nuns only, by the Emperor Louis III., on the other side of the river, where it became the nucleus of the town of Bomiremont. The nuns gave place to oanonesses before the final suppression of the establishment. AA.SS. O.S.B.y " SS. Amatus and Komaric.** Bouquet. Mactaflede is called Saint by Saussayo