Onofre

Saint Onofre (in Greek, Ὀνούφριος, from Egyptian: Wnn-nfr, meaning "he who is continually good") (Ethiopia, about 320-perhaps Syria, about 400) was a hermit and hermit who achieved sainthood and is highly revered today by the Coptic and Catholic Churches.

Hagiography

Early Years

It appears that Saint Onophre was the son of an Egyptian, Persian, or Abyssinian king (Abyssinia was the ancient name of present-day Ethiopia). It is believed that he was born around the year 320. His parents could not have children, but his mother prayed so much to heaven that she eventually conceived. But the devil made the king believe that the child was the product of an adulterous relationship with his wife. "As soon as it is born, throw it into the fire," the evil one told him. The king did so, but the child was unharmed thanks to the intervention of his guardian angel. This miracle caused his parents to convert to the faith of Christ and They baptized him with the Egyptian name Wnn-nfr (Greek Ὀνούφριος), which means "he who is continually good".

Since he was a child he was surrounded by luxuries and comforts, but as a teenager he left his palace one day and knew poverty, anguish and disease, the evils that overwhelm the people. This moved him so much that he abandoned his princely life and requested to be admitted to a convent of Abage, in the region of Eremopolites, or Hermopolis, in the middle of the desert of the Egyptian Thebaid.

In the convent he lived with about a hundred monks who, like him, had abandoned worldly pleasures to live a mystical and spiritual experience alone, sharing food in common and leading a life in peace, dedicated in silence to simple tasks and to win in internal struggles. There he became very devoted to the prophet Saint Elias and Saint John the Baptist, the saint of the hermits. During a famine that devastated the convent, the Virgin Mary saved Onofre from starving to death.

Life as a hermit

San Onofre in a painting by Antonio Molinari.

When he became an adult, he left the monastery and went to live as a hermit, eager to achieve union with the love of God. Tradition relates that a luminary accompanied him for about seven miles on the way to a hut. Knocking on the door, he was opened by a venerable old man who had been a hermit for many years. Onofre fell to his knees, filled with admiration, and the old man said to him: «I was waiting for you, Onofre, who, as you can see, knew your name beforehand; nor are your desires unknown to me, nor am I ignorant of what heaven reserves for you: persevere, then, son, in your purpose, and enter my hut to rest for a few days».

Onofre spent a few days with the old man, who instructed him in the rules of life for hermits. Then he took him to the desert and after about four days of travel they reached the region of Calidiomea, where they found a palm tree that shaded a small hut. The old man told him: "This is the place that God points out to you", and he stayed with Onofre for thirty days, after which he left. Onofre stayed to live there and once a year he went out to visit his teacher and learn of his wise teachings. Other versions affirm that Onofre's hermitage was a cave between cliffs near Göreme (Cappadocia), in present-day Turkey.

Onofre only ate dates and water that he took from the palm tree that grew next to his hut. Other versions state that he also ate desert herbs, insects, and sometimes honey. For clothing he had only his own hair, of considerable length, and interwoven palm leaves or desert grasses. At night he shivered with cold and during the day he was scorched by the inclement rays of the sun. An angel gave him bread and wine on Sundays, and in this way he received communion. He survived like this for 60 years, dedicated to prayer, mortifications and austerities. He rarely left his retreat to administer the sacrament of baptism. When he had been living as a hermit for thirty years, his spiritual teacher died, whom Onofre buried and honored.

Death

San Onofre.

On a certain occasion, the abbot San Pafnucio went into the desert, in search of the famous hermit monks who followed the teachings of San Antonio Abad. After four days on the road, during which he fed himself only with bread and water, he fell ill and his provisions ran out; he was about to die, but he continued walking for another four days and nights, until an angel appeared to him and gave him strength.

Then he walked for seventeen more days until he met a nasty-looking man, whose bristly hair covered his entire body, in the style of wild beasts; around his waist was girded dry desert herbs, and his beard was as long as his hair. Pafnucio was afraid and tried to flee, but the man, who was none other than Onofre, called him saying: "Follow me, I am with God." Pafnucio knelt at his feet, but Onofre told him: "Get up, my son, because you too are a servant of God and of the Holy Fathers." Onofre was in a lamentable state of health, his body had become deformed and his gray hair reflected his old age.

Pafnucio kept him company and asked him to tell him the story of his life. Onofre did so, and shortly after he died, on June 12, 400. Pafnucio wrote down the life and works of Saint Onofre, and tradition adds that when he died, an angelic choir honored and praised him, and some lions meek accompanied Pafnucio to bury the body of the venerable anchorite.

Iconography

San Onofre in a painting of the fifteenth century.

He is represented as a saint with long beards and wrapped in his own hair. He can also appear located in the desert and with a crown and a scepter thrown at his feet, as a symbol of rejection of the vainglories of this world. Sometimes the Regla de Antonio Abad, the skull and the cross that presided over his meditations, the palm tree from whose dates he fed himself and even a saddlebag (symbol of the rations that he never lacked) appear next to him.

Patronage and festivities

Saint Onofre was first venerated in Constantinople, and from there his cult passed to the West at the time of the crusades. Currently he is venerated in several cities in Spain, in some regions of Venezuela, including Caracas, in some areas of Mexico and Cuba, and in the Caribbean region of Colombia. They are usually offered ex-votos of thanks for the favors received. On June 12 of each year, festivals, processions and pilgrimages are held in his honor.

He is patron saint of the cities of Algemesí, Alguazas, Quart de Poblet, L'Alcúdia de Crespins, the principality of Monaco, the German city of Munich, where a relic of his head is preserved, as well as Salobreña, La Lapa (Badajoz, Extremadura), Fuentes de León (Badajoz, Extremadura) and San Onofre (Sucre, Colombia). Some of his bones are preserved in Brunswick.

In Quart de Poblet every June 9, the eve of its festival, the "Passejà de Sant Onofre", A nocturnal votive procession where the image of the saint is accompanied with pyrotechnic elements and music to thank him for his intercession in the face of a drought that devastated the town in 1723.

Many faithful consider him the patron of the unemployed; That is why they light a yellow candle to ask for work and so that there is never a shortage of food in the houses. He is also considered the protector of weavers, of those who want to get their own home, of widowers, of hairdressers, of the lonely, of penitents, of those who lose a loved one and of those who want to overcome an addiction. In some regions of the world it is also invoked against cattle diseases.

Trends of his devotion

San Onofre in a German illustration of 1488.

One of the great dangers of the devotions of many of the saints is that they are taken as justifications for Santeria. Devotion to Santa Bárbara, for example, has been gaining strength among those who do this type of magical-religious practice. San Onofre, likewise, has been taking root among the santeros, and is used to invoke him, and through his intercession to seek and ask for work.

Another trend is the high value of the apocryphal character that this type of literature has. Understand by apocryphal the desire to highlight holiness as a divine intervention, often moving away from a simple, ordinary and daily life. The very fact of eating with wolves, lions, and other similar literary typologies leads to exaggeration and departs from a fully human lifestyle. This is how it is told in the biographical brushstrokes of San Onofre, that "An angel gave him bread daily and on Sundays also communion. He survived this way for 60 years."

In the municipality of San José del Rincón there is a farm in his name, where during the 19th century a painting in honor of this saint was represented, valued at around 15 million pesos, it disappeared in 2013.