A Pure Mirror Turned to Face the Sun

The Story and Wisdom of Saint Macrina the Younger with Reflection Meditations

R. K. Cogburn

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781666733365
  9781666727944
• eBook ISBN:
  9781666727951
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Both carefully researched and engaging, this small book invites the reader into the story of a remarkable fourth-century Cappadocian woman, St. Macrina the Younger, who met challenges that may seem familiar today. Surrounded by polarizing political conflict, in an empire divided by growing disparities between rich and poor, Macrina lived through earthquakes and disastrous droughts. She saw people displaced by war and severe weather, pushed into the ranks of the hungry and houseless. She suffered breast cancer and lost loved ones in tragic, unexpected deaths. Her response was nothing less audacious, fascinating, and inspiring than a commitment to know, reveal, and reflect God in her actions, and to make her home a microcosm of gospel life--an inclusive community of love, equality, simplicity, labor, caring, and generosity. The story begins with Macrina's parents among Christian refugees hiding in the hills during the Great Persecution. Restored to their family estates after the Edict of Milan, they raised two of the Cappadocian Fathers and two other saints. In this book, we follow their eldest child, Macrina, as her lived faith changes the course of her own life, and gradually and steadily permeates and remakes her family and community.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Pearl Beyond Price
• Chapter 2: Sex, Freedom, and the Meaning of Life
• Chapter 3: A Secret Name
• Chapter 4: Wisdom, Wool, and Womanhood
• Chapter 5: Vocation
• Chapter 6: The Bread of Life
• Chapter 7: Hope, Death, and the Ascetic Way
• Chapter 8: Macrina and Basil: Brother and Sister in Faith
• Chapter 9: Breast Cancer, Suffering, and Healing
• Chapter 10: Famine, Justice, and Holy Detachment
• Chapter 11: Like an Incense Offering: The Grace of a Happy Death
• Epilogue: A Soldier’s Tale
• Appendix 1: Chapter Notes
• Appendix 2: Timeline
• Bibliography