Saint Euphemia and Bahiran
Dear Children of God! how are you? How is life at home and school? We are now in the occasion of “Apostle’s Fast” and wonder if you are holding as a strong, brave and good children! We hope you are obeying the law and rule in attending the Church so as to live a spiritual life as Christians. Good!
Today we will tell you two stories that Archangel Saint Michael’s intercession and mediation is illustrated as scripted (written) in Holy Scriptures.
Bahiran
Once lived, a man who feared God, and who use to celebrate Saint Michael’s feast on the12th day of each month, and especially during the months of Hedar and Senie. A rich man in the neighborhood used to despise and ridiculed this God-fearing man for celebrating Saint Michael’s feasts.
When the God-fearing man approaches to his death, he commanded his wife to keep on the celebration of Saint Michael’s Feasts. The woman was pregnant when her husband passed away. The woman suffered terrible pain during labor and she delivered through the help of Saint Michael. When she brought forth a child, Saint Michael came down from heaven, blessed the child, and prophesied about the future fate of the child saying, “This child shall inherit all the possessions and land of the rich man.” At that moment God opened the ear of the rich man and heard what the Angel said. Then great sorrow came upon him, and he wanted to kill the child. But God protected the child through the intercession of Saint Michael.
When the child was ten years old, his mother was bankrupted, and the rich man found opportunity for his scam. He requested the woman to minister her child at the wage of twenty dinars in gold. Then the woman gave her son to the rich man; the man rejoiced with a great joy, and said in his heart, “Behold, what I have desired is fulfilled for me.
Then, he made a wooden box which fit the size of the boy and crammed him into it, throwing the box in to a river. However, the box floated on the surface of the river by the grace of God until it came to the quay of a certain city. A shepherd nearby saw the box and pulled it out taking it to his home. When the Shepherd unlocked the box, he found a smart boy crammed in the box. He rejoiced as he had no child to raise. So, he named him ‘Bahrain’ because he found him in the river; the boy became to him as his son.
Years later, the rich man wished to go and sojourn with the shepherd, and when the sun was about to set he said unto the shepherd, “If you provide me with a place to rest in until tomorrow, I will pay you the charge.” The shepherd welcomed the rich man into his house, and he called the boy “Bahiran” by his name. When the rich man heard the name, he asked the shepherd whether Bahrain was his son. The shepherd replied “Yes, I found this young man when he was a little boy in a box in the river, and I took him and reared him as my son.” Upon hearing that, the rich man was very sad in his heart, because he knew that the young man was the boy whom he had thrown into the river to kill.
The following day, with an evil plot in mind, the rich man asked his host to allow him to send Bahiran with a message to his house in his home city claiming that he had forgotten something at home. He promised to pay twenty dinars of gold for the errand. The shepherd agreed with the rich man to send to his house. Then the rich man wrote a letter to his steward, saying, “When you have read this letter, kill the bearer of it, whose name is ‘Bahiran,’ and cast his body into a pit. Let no one know about this until I come in peace”; he wrote on the letter a certain sign which they had agreed upon, and which none but the rich man and his steward knew. He sealed the letter and gave it to Bahrain. He also handed him the money needed for the journey, and the young man departed.
While Bahiran was about to reach at the house of the rich man the angel of God, Saint Michael, came to him in the guise of a soldier riding a horse; and he said to Bahiran, “What do you have with you?” when Bahrain told him about the letter, the Angel asked to see it. Bahrain has shown the letter in distant being frightened and the Angel blew on the paper, erasing what was written on it. Immediately, the thought of the letter was changed this way, “Behold, I the rich man have sent unto you the bearer of this letter whose name is Bahiran. As soon as you have read this letter, let him marry my daughter and take over all my possessions. Do not wait until I come back, for I shall tarry on my journey. Let him do what he wishes in my house, for I have given him authority over all my belongings. Here is the sign which is between you and me, O my steward.”
Then the angel sealed the letter, gave it to Bahiran and He continued on his journey with devotion. When Bahiran had reached at the house of the rich man, he gave the letter to his steward. When the steward read the letter and recognized the mark, and knew that it was authentic. They immediately prepared a great marriage-feast for Bahrain and the daughter of the rich man. They married them in the Church, before the sanctuary of God; the couple enjoyed their wedding season for forty days.
En route the end of the matrimony, the rich man returned to his home town, and when he heard the sound of the music, he asked, saying, “What is this sound which I hear?” People told him the whole story about the letter, the matrimony of Bahiran who has inherited his wealth and married his daughter. When the rich man heard these words, he cried out loud, fell down and die. Bahiran inherited all his money as God had commanded. The young man celebrated Saint Michael’s feast on the 12th day of each month, knowing that it was the Archangel, who had appeared to him and changed the letter.
Saint Euphemia
Saint Euphemia is a holy woman was the wife of a man who feared God, and he gave much alms, and kept three festivals each month, that is to say, the festival of the glorious Saint Michael, on the twelfth day of each month, and the festival of our holy Lady the Virgin Mary on the twenty-first day of each month, and the festival commemorating the birth of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ on the twenty-ninth day of each month.
When the day of his death drew nigh, he commanded the saint, his wife, never to fail in giving alms as he was wont to do, and especially to keep these three festivals. She asked her husband to have painted a picture of the glorious angel Saint Michael, the Archangel, in her house, and to give it to her, and he did this for her; and when he died this saint continued to do as her husband had done. Satan was jealous of her, and he came unto her disguised as a widow who was a nun, and he came to her and held converse with her, saying, “I am sorry for thee and pity thee. And now I advise you to marry, and to bring forth a son before thy money come to an end, and thou fall into want at the last.” Then he said to her, “Behold, your husband has inherited the kingdom of heaven, and he hath no need of alms.” She answered and said to him, “I have promised God that I will never consort with another man; even the doves and the ravens do not take second mates. How then can men who are created in the form and likeness of God do this?” When she would not hearken to his advice, he changed his form, and cried out against her, saying, “I will come to thee another day”; and she took the picture of the glorious Saint Michael, and drove him away therewith.
When the twelfth day of Sane had come, and she was occupied with the celebration of the festival according to her custom, Satan appeared unto her in the form of the glorious Saint Michael, and he said unto her, “Peace be to you! I am Michael, the Archangel, God hath sent me to thee, and He command thee to cease from these alms, and to marry a believing man. Know thou that a woman without a man is like a ship without a rudder”; and he began to bring to her proofs out of the Old Testament, and to show her how Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and David, and others like unto them married wives and pleased God. The saint answered and said unto him, “If thou art an angel of God, where is the symbol of the Cross on thee? The soldier of a king never goes to another place without the symbol of the king on him.”
When Satan heard these words from her, he changed his form, and he began to choke her, and she prayed to the glorious Saint Michael, and he came unto her forthwith and delivered her from him. He seized Satan and began to punish him, and Satan entreated him, saying, “God will bear with us until the end of the world. Have mercy upon me and do not torture me”; and he gave her the salutation of peace and went up into heaven. After she had finished the preparations for the feast in the proper manner, she sent to the bishop and the priests, and they came to her, and she gave them all her money to give to the poor, and the needy, and the destitute. And she took the picture of the glorious Saint Michael, and prayed to it, and laid it upon her face and breast, and then she died in peace. These two miraculous stories are commemorated on Sene 12 at the Archangel Saint Michaela’s Church and we recommend you to celebrate it with your families.
Dear Children of God! we hope you have understood themes of the stories and grasped all the important notions to apply them in your spiritual life. Most of all, you shall know the value of Archangel Saint Michael’s payer, intercession and mediation.
May the intercession of Archangel Saint Michael be with us; Amen!