Once the holy Makarios went to keep an ill hermit company. Casting an eye around the ill man’s naked cell, he saw that there was nowhere even a scrap of food.
“What would you like to eat, brother?” asked the Saint.
The ill monk hesitated to answer. What was he supposed to ask for, since there was nothing in that wilderness? Finally, since the Saint was waiting for him to answer, he said that he had the desire for a little soup made with flour. But where was the flour to be found?
The holy Makarios, so as to comfort his sick brother, went fifty miles on foot to Alexandria to find flour.
–From The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: Translated Narratives from the Evergetinos on Passions and P
erfection in Christ by Archimandrite Chrysostomos, Hellenic College Press: Brookline, MA, 1980.
