Today December 31

Today is the feast of St. Melania the Younger, laywoman (383 - 439). Her religious but ambitious parents arranged a marriage for her with the Christian Pinian, a distant relative. She had the idea that the ideal of marriage was complete continence (abstinence), but it sure wasn't her husband's! They got together and had two children, a girl and then a boy, neither of whom survived infancy. The birth of the second child was a medical emergency for Melania; Pinian, who had grown to know and dearly love her, promised her that if she lived, he would live in a continent marriage with her ever after. They did, although it was a long, hard sell on Melania's part to get him to give up his sumptuous dress and wealthy lifestyle. They lived simply in a villa in the Italian countryside and slowly divested themselves of their many possessions, believing, as they did so, that "the superfluity of the rich belongs to their hungry and naked neighbors," according to St. Ambrose. It doesn't say whether or not she ever met that saint, but she (and her husband) did meet St. Augustine (who called them "real lights of the Church"), St. Paulinus of Nola (who called her "blessed little one") and St. Jerome, whose platonic female friend she became.

She stayed in the Holy Land, where, after their deaths, she buried her husband and mother-in-law side by side on the Mount of Olives. She was spiritual adviser to a group of nuns there and was remarkable for her mildness, especially in that austere age. She had a great talent for transcription and she painstakingly copied many manuscripts, in both Greek and Latin, some of which were still extant 500 years later.

She died on this day in 439 after hearing Mass and her last words were echoes of the words of Job: "As the Lord willed, so it is done." St. Melania, pray for us.