Written by Mohrael Mikhael
2 December, 2022
Mohrael Mikhael is a high school senior at Hinsdale Central High School and looks forward to joining the OCCM family.
Meet Him at the well today so you can witness on the ship tomorrow, but don’t tell your parents.
“This saint went to declare her faith without telling her parents'' [Coptic Synaxarion Tobe
14]...oh by the way, she was 12 years old!
There is much to be said about the life of the martyr St. Mohrael (Mohrati) of Tamouh.
However, the way she left her family (1) without telling them, is beyond remarkable. A 12 year
old girl, who was also a PK - “priest kid” by our terms - you’d think she’d at least say goodbye. Yet, there is a trend of silence among the saints that HH Pope Shenouda III captured when saying “I tell you: live as they did and then you will know what the saints have kept secret.” We see in Zephaniah 3:17 that “God is silent in His love” [CJB] “He will quiet you with His love” [NKJV]. This silence is the production of solitude which naturally turns into the pulse of prayer and the oxygen of Love.
By the age of 8 years, St. Mohrael was already living a profound ascetic life (it was also
around this time that her first miracle was recorded). We know from written accounts that, as
the oldest child, she would wake with the sunrise to fetch water from the village well for her
family. This morning routine for St. Mohrael that she did in singularity was in actuality her
morning offering (matins). The discipline of waking the body early at sunrise was a
resemblance of the repentance accompanied by the Grace of God, Who is The True Light who Lightens both the world and the land of our hearts. The walk to the well served as the journey with Christ, Who Shepherd's us to still waters. The well itself in Biblical terms is perhaps the most popular location for purification. Jacob’s well in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament with the Samaritan woman (John 4) who transformed into St. Photini, the first evangelist. Likewise, St. Mohrael encountered God daily at the well which was ironically the exact location where she too left her water pot to witness for Christ when she spotted the ship of chained Christians headed for Emperor Diocletian. So offer a daily matins to the Lord – when you are tempted to snooze, remember the sun that will rise, on your walk to class meditate on your journey with Him, and leave your water pot behind so when you meet a classmate, you can offer them The Life Giving Waters. But above all, don’t tell your parents...aka...prioritize a time for solitude and silence, especially at the well of the altar. “As to those who lack understanding She (Wisdom) says, "Come eat of My Body and drink of My Blood. Relinquish the ignorance from among you, so that you might live” [Wisdom Fraction of St. Epiphanius].
HH Pope Shenouda offers a prayer that resembles the matins of St. Mohrael: “Behold I
watch the coming of Your morning; when it will come to dispel my darkness...it is true that I am in the night but I am not far away from You. I am in the dark night but after this night there must be a dawn and a day. The slumber on my bed is a temporary limited period of my life, it must end with the end of this night...I want to be reconciled with You and return to the old love that existed between us. I want to apologize to You and comfort Your heart concerning me. Yes, this is what I want. Truly, O Lord, I will strive behind You with full force in hopes of restoring my relationship with You. I will search for You and ask people about You until I find You.” ~Prayer by HH Pope Shenouda III [Dialogues With The Divine pg. 29]
Meet Him at the well today so you can witness on the ship tomorrow, but don’t tell your parents.
(1) Father: Abouna Youannis, Mother: Illaria, and Brother: Abahor)
