St Narcissus

From the time that Narcissus was a young boy, he loved Jesus and learning about Him through the preaching of other Christians. He grew up during the very early times of the Church and he became the 30th Bishop of Jerusalem when he was 80 years old. Even though he was quite old, he had so much energy to serve Jesus that he never slowed down. He performed miracles because of his great faith in Jesus. Once, when his Church had run out of oil to fill the lamps for the Easter Vigil, he changed water into oil so Mass could continue. Although Narcissus was loved by the Christian people of Jerusalem, there were still those who did not like him because he wouldn’t change the laws of the Church, and so they tried to harm him. Three of these people made up a horrible lie about Narcissus and claimed to be telling the truth. One said that if he was lying he would die by fire; another said he would get a sickness called leprosy; and the last person said that if he was lying he would go blind. After this happened, Bishop Narcissus escaped to the desert to spend time alone with Jesus. He was tired of all the unbelief and evil that was around him and he enjoyed being only with God. But the three men were indeed lying, and the horrible things that they had said would happen to them if they lied did occur, proving to all that Bishop Narcissus was innocent. Even though Bishop Narcissus could have stayed in the desert, he knew that the Christians of Jerusalem needed him and so he returned to serve the Church with all the energy of a young man, even though by this time he was very old. St. Alexander came to help Bishop Narcissus when he got too old to be Bishop by himself. Narcissus lived until he was 116 years old, serving the Church through prayer and teachings until He went to meet Jesus in Heaven.