Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 19

 

The Month of October

Day 19

50. Instruction to Mothers Who Have Lost Their Children: Third Discourse

(From the account of Holy Martyr Varus, Blessed Cleopatra, and her son John)

To you, mothers whom the Lord has ordained to lose one or another of your children, we address these words. What does it mean that whenever we have seen you at the graves of your children, we have always encountered a heart-rending sight, seeing on your faces inconsolable grief or boundless despair? What makes you give yourselves over to such sorrow? Intense love? But love must be guided by sound judgment. A lack of faith in God? But this is very dangerous.

Yes, mothers, if you are Christians, you should not behave like those who have no hope. If you believe that God exists, that the soul is immortal, and that there is a future life, why then behave as though there were no future life, as though nothing had existed, nothing existed now, and nothing would ever exist, and as though your children had vanished forever? This is unworthy of Christians. God exists; therefore, as the common Father of all, He has taken your children to Himself and will surely preserve and raise them better than you could. There is a future life; therefore, you will see your children again. There is recompense after death; therefore, there is no need to worry about your children’s fate in the life after death if you raised them in the Orthodox faith and in piety, or you can always obtain mercy for them at God’s judgment through fervent prayer. Therefore, grieve, but not without reason. Believe, hope, pray, and the Lord will comfort you.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 16

The Month of October

Day 16

47. A Second Instruction to Mothers Who Have Lost Their Children

(From the Life of Saint Longinus the Centurion)

Not long ago (see Instruction 40), we spoke with you, mothers who have suffered the misfortune of losing one or another of your children. Drawing upon the Life of Venerable Athanasia (October 9), we sought to offer you consolation in your great sorrow. Now, in the Life of Saint Longinus the Centurion, we have found yet another source of consolation for you, which we hasten to bring to your attention.

There was a certain woman, a widow who had lost her sight and hoped, through her faith, to regain it. She set out with her only son to pray in Jerusalem. Her son led her to the holy places, but there he soon fell ill and died. Who could describe the grief of this poor widow, deprived of her sight and now bereft of her only son! But God soon consoled her. Saint Longinus the Centurion appeared to her in a dream and instructed her to seek his head at a certain place outside Jerusalem. He promised to restore her sight and console her over the loss of her son. When she awoke, the widow, guided by those accompanying her, went to the place indicated by the martyr. There she soon found the precious head of Longinus and immediately regained her sight.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 9

 

The Month of October

Day 9

40. To Mothers Who Have Lost Their Children

(From the Life of Venerable Athanasia)

You mothers whom the Lord has ordained to suffer the loss of one or another of your children, we intend to speak with you today about the life of Venerable Athanasia, whose memory the Holy Church commemorates on October 9. From this same life, we hope to offer you consolation in your grief, strengthen your faith in the afterlife, awaken in you confidence in God’s all-good providence for your children who have departed into the heavenly realm, and finally draw you away from hopeless despondency, despair, and anguish. Listen attentively, then, to what is written in the life of this servant of God whom we have mentioned.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: September 17

The Month of September

Day 17

18. On How Mothers Should Raise Their Children

(From the Life of the Holy Martyrs Faith, Hope, and Love and Their Mother Sophia. September 17, Menaion.)

The responsibility for raising children rests primarily upon you, Christian mothers! God Himself has entrusted this responsibility to you. Look at a child: who has instilled in him such love for you that he does not hasten to anyone as he does to you, show affection to anyone as he does to you, and can hardly live without you? You will certainly agree that God Himself has placed this love within him. But why? The reason is obvious. He placed it there so that you would understand that if a child, so to speak, never leaves your side, he does not do so without reason. God Himself has commanded him not to leave you and, by this, to require of you that you keep constant watch over the development of his inclinations and understanding and that, as far as possible, you develop his spiritual and bodily faculties. Hardly anyone will dispute this truth, and I think you yourselves will agree with it. And if you agree, you will even more readily agree that the duty of raising children is a difficult one, and that not every mother is capable of fulfilling it properly.

Prologue in Sermons: December 9

For Childless Spouses

December 9
 
(The Conception of the Holy and God-bearing Mother Anna, when the Holy Theotokos was Conceived. On the same day, the Holy Prophetess Anna (Hannah), the Mother of the Prophet Samuel.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Childless couples often grieve deeply over their childlessness. Others have everything: wealth, high social status, health, and good fortune, yet still have no children. And the desire for them sometimes even becomes a torment. What can one say to console such people, and what advice can one offer them?

Saint Anastasia Şaguna, Mother of the Holy Hierarch Andrei Şaguna (+ 1836)

 

Anastasia Şaguna (1785–1836) was the mother of the Holy Hierarch Andrei Şaguna, one of the most illustrious figures of Romanian Orthodoxy.

Born in 1785, she received a select education from her parents, in the spirit of fear of God, honor and steadfastness in the ancestral faith.

She married young, and at the age of 18 she became a mother, giving birth to Evreta, the brother of the later Metropolitan, followed by a little girl, Ecaterina, in 1806 and the infant Anastasios (the future Metropolitan Andrei Şaguna) on December 20, 1808, in Miscolts.

Anastasia's life took a dramatic turn when her husband, Naum Şaguna, for material reasons and forced by circumstances, converted to Catholicism. This choice generated an intense internal and external struggle for Anastasia, who decided to defend her faith and, above all, the souls of her children with all her might. Convinced that the holiest religion was the one in which her parents and ancestors worshipped, Anastasia chose to fight for her little ones to remain Orthodox.

Homily One on the Day of the Feast of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" (Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov)

Homily One on the Day of the Feast of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow"

By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov

(Delivered on October 24, 1962)

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

"Joy of all who sorrow, Intercessor of the offended, Nourisher of the hungry, Comfort of strangers, Refuge of the storm-tossed, Visitor of the sick, Protection of the infirm and Defender, Staff of old age, You are the Mother of the Most High God, O Most Pure One: hasten, we pray, that Your servants may be saved." 

 

With these touching and profound words, the Holy Church, on behalf of all Christians, addresses the Most Pure Virgin Mary, teaching us also to always flee under Her maternal protection. 

Synaxarion of Saint Martha, Mother of Venerable Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain

St. Martha (Feast Day - July 4)

Verses

If you neither worry nor become troubled, Martha, 
You will have everything else and the end of Martha.

This Venerable Martha practiced every kind of virtue, and while she occupied herself in the churches of God, she bore Saint Symeon from a promise. She possessed a great deal of asceticism and practiced standing; indeed, no one ever saw her sitting on Sunday, nor conversing with anyone at all. She had great love, and mercy, and humility. The feet of all foreigners she would wash and welcomed them. She clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and to those who were baptized and did not have clean shrouds to wear according to custom, she provided these shrouds. Likewise, she gave shrouds to the poor who died and had no means to be buried. She also had great faith and devotion to the Lady Theotokos, from whom she was granted to behold, before her death, the enjoyment of the heavenly good things that she was destined to receive after death.

July: Day 4: Teaching 2: Saint Martha, Mother of Venerable Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain

July: Day 4: Teaching 2:
Saint Martha, Mother of Venerable Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain

(Advice on the Religious and Moral Education of Children)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Martha, whose memory the Holy Church celebrates today, had an only son, Symeon; she brought him up, as is said in her life, with great care, and God granted her, while she was still alive, to rejoice in the holy and God-pleasing life of her son. But the time came for Martha to depart to the heavenly world, and then, on the day before her death, she was honored with the following vision. It seemed to her that she was caught up to the heights of heaven and there she saw a most wondrous and bright house, the beauty of which it is impossible to describe. And when she walked into that house and marveled at its wondrous arrangement, she suddenly saw the Most Holy Theotokos with two most radiant angels, Who said to her: "Why are you surprised?" Martha, reverently bowing to the Mother of God, answered: "I am surprised because, Lady, I have never seen such a wonderful house in all the days of my life on earth." Then the Queen of Heaven said: "What do you think, for whom is this house prepared?" - "I do not know, Lady," answered Martha. The Most Pure One continued: "Know that this rest has been prepared for you and this house was created for you by your son, and you will abide in it forever." After this, at the command of the Lady, the angels set up a wondrous throne, and the Mother of God continued: "This glory is given to you because you lived in the fear of God and in a God-pleasing manner. But do you want to see here even more glorious places?" And, having said this, she ordered Martha to follow her. And the Queen of Heaven took her to the highest heavenly places and showed her an even more wondrous and luminous house, incomparably compared to the first, the beauty of which neither the human mind can comprehend, nor can anyone's tongue utter. Here the Mother of God also said: “And your son built this house, and also laid the foundation of the third.” The day after this, blessed Martha died.

October: Day 19: Holy Martyr Varus

October: Day 19:
Holy Martyr Varus

(On Devotion to God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. When the Holy Martyr Varus, whose memory is celebrated today, who lived in Egypt during the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximian, was put to death amidst the most terrible tortures for confessing the name of Christ, and his body was thrown out of the city by his torturers to be devoured by dogs, then a certain pious Christian widow, named Cleopatra, with her devoted servants, secretly took the body of the Holy Martyr at night and buried it for a time in her house. This Cleopatra was a native of Palestine and had recently lost her husband, who was a military commander. She had such faith in the Holy Martyr that, returning to her homeland with her only son John, she decided to take with her the sacred relics of the Martyr in order to place them in her family cemetery. Cleopatra asked the government for permission to transfer the body of her husband, but under the guise of him she transported the body of the Holy Martyr Varus to her homeland. Such zeal and respect of blessed Cleopatra for the memory and sacred relics of the Passion-bearer attracted God's blessing upon her: her only-begotten son was safely coming of age, preparing to enter the royal service.

Saint George Karslides and the Pregnant Woman Who Unintentionally Lost Her Baby

A pregnant mother, who unintentionally lost her baby while carrying something heavy, was given a penance by Saint George Karslides for her to do forty prostrations every night throughout Great Lent. He said to her: "If you can, I want you to dress an orphan as well." Merciful himself, he taught others to always be merciful, for love will cover a multitude of sins. Indeed, the mother bought fabric and sewed a dress for a very poor little orphaned girl. When she gave it to the girl, they were both overjoyed. This is how the Saint taught love, simply and gracefully.

 

 

The Fasting Maccabees (Demetrios Panagopoulos)

By Demetrios Panagopoulos (+ 1982), Preacher

If you open your Synaxarion to August 1st you will find a mother with seven children. It is Saint Solomone. She is the mother of these children, the so-called "Maccabees". She had entrusted her children to a teacher named Eleazar.

And do you know why these children were all sacrificed? Because they refused to eat pork. It was a law then in the Old Testament that pork was forbidden.

Are you listening? Who told them about this? This is not a simple task, but it came from someone who by deed and word instilled it in them.