Let us give a gift to the Holy Unmercenaries!
Sophia Bekri, philologist – theologian
It is recounted in the Synaxarion of Saints Cosmas and Damian the Unmercenaries of Rome, whose memory we celebrate on the 1st of July, that they did not choose their patients on the basis of their purse, but offered their help to all, without distinction and without payment. Indeed, when the wealthier among them gave them money, they not only refused to accept it, but pointed them toward others, their more needy brethren, so that they might help them instead.
Perhaps someone may reasonably wonder: "And who provided for the Holy Unmercenaries, since they received no payment for their work?" The answer is simple. The community provided for their needs. As is well known, the Saints lived in the early Christian years (3rd c.), when the communities functioned and all the needs, spiritual, educational and social, of all their members were met within their framework (see chapters 2 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles). Therefore they, as "healers of souls and bodies," cured, with their knowledge and by the grace of God, pain and illnesses, while the brethren who had been benefited by them saw to the covering of their modest needs. What could be more just and more beautiful!
One thing only did the Saints ask in return for their service: faith in God. And this they did not demand as a requirement from those they healed, but asked it as a favour, because they knew that faith would be their healing! Just as Christ says to the centurion of the Gospel, "as you have believed, so be it done for you" (Matt. 8:13), and immediately his servant is healed, so too the Saints issued a "roll-call" of faith and love, with the aim of offering healing to their patients, for they knew that, if the soul finds its healer in the person of Jesus Christ, then the body too will quickly find its cure.
For this reason, then, the Saints did not ask for money for their services to the suffering brother, because "freely they had received." As a gift they received the charism of working miracles from the Lord who gives gifts, and in turn they offered it generously to their brethren, and they continue to offer it to this day and will continue to do so unto the ages, for the charisms are not lost, since the Saints do not die but are translated to eternal life.
If, then, we too today wish to give a gift to the Saints, let us choose the most precious one, as they deserve. Let us become faithful to the word of God, moral and blameless in our personal life, just and loving in our conduct with our brethren, exactly as they too became. They always remained united with the body of Christ, the Church, as members in part (1 Cor. 12:12, 27), and they never came out the losers; on the contrary, indeed: they were benefited and they benefited others.
Let us, therefore, entreat the Holy Unmercenaries to pray unceasingly to the merciful God to grant us "the remission of sins" and His rich and abundant grace. Amen!
