Sarah of Sketis

Virgin Abbess Sarah of Sketis in Libya is remembered in The Paradise of the Fathers for her sayings. Mother Sarah said: "If I were to ask God that all people might be built up through me, I would be found expressing contrition at the door of each one who repents. But I pray to God especially that my heart may be pure with Him and with everyone." Once two great elders and anchorites left Mount Pelusium (in the northeastern Nile Delta) to see Amma Sarah. Speaking among themselves they said: "Let us humble this old woman." When they came to her she said: "Be careful, you may be humbled by the words you have spoken. Behold, anchorites have come to one who is a woman. According to nature I am a woman, but not according to my worth." Once she went to Sketis and was offered some food. She did not eat any of the best, only the plain food, because she did not want to use her journey and visit as an excuse to relax her fasting. Then they said to her: "Truly you are like those who dwell at Sketis." It was said of Amma Sarah that she lived above a river for sixty years but never looked out from her abode to see it. She also said: "It is a good thing for a person to give alms, even if he does so in order to win the approval of others, because by doing this he will come to do it for God's sake."

Saint Sarah brought many women to monasticism by the example of her holy and God-⁠pleasing life. She reposed in peace in the year 370 at the age of eighty. She is commemorated on 13 July (new style; 26 July on the old calendar).