St. Hilarion, a Palestinian solitary, passed a life of self-denial and mortification in the wilderness of Egypt and the Holy Land. His biography was written by St. Jerome. His last words were: “Go forth, O my soul, what do you fear? You have served Christ for seventy years, do you now fear death?” In the East he was the first to be venerated as a saint other than a martyr. He died at the age of eighty in 371.

(Source: The New Roman Missal, Rev. F. X. Lasance)