Saint Macarius is intense!!!

For seven years he lived on raw vegetables dipped in water with a few crumbs of bread, moistened with drops of oil on feast days.

Once spent 20 days and 20 nights without sleep, burnt by the sun in the day, frozen by bitter desert cold cold at night. "My mind dried up because of lack of sleep, and I had a kind of delirium," the hermit admitted. "So I gave in to nature and returned to my cell."

Spent six months naked in the marshes, beset constantly by viscious blood-sucking flies and mosquitoes, in the hope of destroying his last bit of sexual desire. The terrible conditions and attacking insects left him so deformed that when he returned to the monks, they could recognize him only by his voice.

Wrapping his mind in God and sternly disciplining his body with vigils and fasting, Macarius rapidly ascended the ladder of perfection, garnering in the process a wealth of spiritual gifts: of healing, discernment, interpretation of Scriptures, prophecy, exorcism of demons, even the power to raise the dead.

Saint Macarius taught a wonderful simplicity. "Christians," he said, "should judge no one, neither an open harlot, nor sinners, nor dissolute people, but should look upon all with simplicity of soul and a pure eye. Purity of heart, indeed, consists in seeing sinful and weak men and having compassion for them and being merciful." On the subject of prayer he counselled, "It is enough if you will often repeat from your whole heart, 'Lord, as it pleases Thee and as Thou knowest, have mercy on me.' And if temptation comes upon you: 'Lord, help me!' The Lord knows what is profitable for us and has mercy on us."