The saint of the day today is Venerable Sioes the Great, who once raised a man’s son from the dead without really meaning to(!)

Reading the troparion this morning, I got curious about St. Sisoes. So when I got home I looked him up on the OCA Website

Saint Sisoes the Great (+ 429) was a solitary monk, pursuing asceticism in the Egyptian desert in a cave sanctified by the prayerful labors of his predecessor, St Anthony the Great (January 17). For his sixty years of labor in the desert, St Sisoes attained to sublime spiritual purity and he was granted the gift of wonderworking, so that by his prayers he once restored a dead child back to life.

OCA doesn’t elaborate about that miracle, but via Christopher Haas’ A Word from the Desert, we have “the rest of the story”. To paraphrase, a father was traveling to see St. Sisoes with his son, who was ill and actually perished on the way there. The father’s faith was such that he continued his journey. He brought his dead son in to receive a blessing from the saint. The father went outside and the saint, turning a seeing the son and not knowing he was dead, said for him to go off with his father.

Which is exactly what the son did. The deceased son came back to life and went outside to find his father.

When he saw it, his father was filled with amazement and went back inside. He bowed before the old man and told him the whole story. When he heard it, [St. Sisoes] was filled with regret, for he had not intended that to happen. So the disciple asked the father of the child not to speak of it to anyone before [his] death.

And I’ll let OCA have the last word:

When St Sisoes lay upon his deathbed, the disciples surrounding the Elder saw that his face shone like the sun. They asked the dying man what he saw. Abba Sisoes replied that he saw St Anthony, the prophets, and the apostles. His face increased in brightness, and he spoke with someone. The monks asked, “With whom are you speaking, Father?” He said that angels had come for his soul, and he was entreating them to give him a little more time for repentance. The monks said, “You have no need for repentance, Father.”

St Sisoes said with great humility, “I do not think that I have even begun to repent.” 

Now there’s something to think about.