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Fragment of a homily by Saint Gregory the Pope of Rome about a monk who was almost swallowed by a serpent but was released thanks to his brothers\u2019 prayers.<\/em><\/p>\n Brothers, we all must pray for each other at all times, following the law of Christian love; hence, the Apostle says, pray one for another<\/em> (James\u00a05:16); notwithstanding that, our prayer for those of our neighbors who are getting close to death must be especially zealous and persistent. The dying need our prayers the most; our fervent prayers for them set them free from the horrors of their death hour and sometimes even makes them whole.<\/p>\n Here is a story told to us by Saint Gregory, Pope of Rome: \u201cThere was a pious monk in my monastery. His brother came to the monastery and asked us to let him become one of us. We accepted him. But alas! The second brother led a completely different life. He didn\u2019t care for his soul at all: he didn\u2019t follow the monastic rules; he judged others and wore fashionable clothes; he couldn\u2019t tolerate anyone who would talk to him about the afterlife and the need of repentance. We wanted to expel him more than once but each time we didn\u2019t want to make his pious brother sad, so we let him stay. After a while, the slothful monk fell severely ill and was dying. While his body was growing stiff, the monks circled him and began to pray. All of a sudden, the dying monk screamed, \u201cLeave me alone! A scary serpent is about to swallow me but he can\u2019t do it because of your prayers. Go away so that I would stop feeling this pain: I\u2019d rather he swallowed me and it were over.\u201d \u201cWhat are you talking about? Cross your heart!\u201d the monks said to the dying man. \u201cI can\u2019t,\u201d he replied. \u201cThe serpent is squeezing me.\u201d The monks proceeded to pray even harder, and their prayer wasn\u2019t in vain. Soon, the dying man felt better and told them in a happy voice, \u201cPraise God! The serpent, to whom I was given as prey for my sins, has spat me out and is running away. Please keep praying for me; I want to improve and start a new life.\u201d The brothers kept praying for him. What do you think happened? His life was spared. He improved and persevered in repentance and godliness until his death.<\/p>\n Seeing how beneficial your prayer for the dying can be, hurry to their deathbeds and pray for them. It may be that your prayer will save the sick person, and the Lord will make him strong again; undoubtedly, your prayer will bring them spiritual benefit, empower them as they grapple with demonic attacks, and help them to die as Christians. In addition, it will alleviate your grief at losing them. Amen.<\/p>\n Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fragment of a homily by Saint Gregory the Pope of Rome about a monk who was almost swallowed by a serpent but was released…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[18,14],"class_list":["post-21118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orthodox-wisdom","tag-personal-stories","tag-stories-and-parables"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/26860383391_c9de357ca4_k-e1492893415370.jpg","views":{"total":317,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768403351},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-5uC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21124,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21118\/revisions\/21124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/14.png\")
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