Homily One on All Saints Day (Righteous Alexei Mechev)

Homily One on All Saints Day*

By Righteous Alexei Mechev

(Delivered on June 1, 1914)

The Sunday after Trinity Day is called by the Church the Sunday of All Saints, and it is called so because on this Sunday the Holy Church has decreed to celebrate the memory of all Saints.

Every day is dedicated by the Holy Church in memory and honor of a certain Saint of God, but it was necessary to designate one day for all Saints as if to gather them all for veneration on one day, to demonstrate that they all acted with one power; the power of Jesus Christ, our Savior, directed everything, albeit through different paths, but towards one goal – the Same One Lord. It could not be otherwise, for they all looked to, that is, took as an example the One who is the Author of their labors – that same Jesus Christ, and thus they were crowned by Him with a single crown of Glory, each according to their worthiness, constituting the One Holy Church of Heaven in the celestial realm; this Church, in turn, unites with the earthly Church, along with all believers on earth.

June: Day 15: Teaching 2: Holy Prophet Amos

 

June: Day 15: Teaching 2:
Holy Prophet Amos

(About the Holy Prophets)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Church now remembers the Holy Prophet Amos. Before his call to prophetic service, Amos tended flocks of sheep, as he himself testifies in the book he wrote. He began to prophesy during the reign of Hosea, the King of Judah, and Jeroboam II of Israel. The Israelites at that time had almost forgotten the true God and began to worship idols. Amos often came to the place of pagan gatherings in Bethel and admonished the people, threatening them with the wrath of God. The Book of the Prophet Amos, written in an artless style and rich in comparisons from the life of a shepherd, consists of nine chapters. In the first two chapters, the Prophet predicts various disasters for the neighboring predatory tribes for their cruel actions towards the Israelites. In the last seven chapters he addresses the people of Israel, accuses the rich of luxury and oppression of the poor, rebels against the injustice of judges, deceptions of all kinds and the impenitence of the Jews in all the misfortunes sent by God. He predicts the destruction of Bethel with its altar, the dispersion of Israel among the nations and finally the conversion of all nations to the true God.

June: Day 15: Teaching 1: Saint Jonah, Metropolitan of Moscow

June: Day 15: Teaching 1:
Saint Jonah, Metropolitan of Moscow

(Lessons From His Life: 
a. One Must Serve God, 
b. Help the Unfortunate, and 
c. Love One’s Country)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Jonah, Metropolitan of Moscow, whose memory the Holy Church celebrates on this day, from his youth loved solitude and the labors of monastic life. At the age of 12 he entered one of the monasteries in his native land, the Kostroma region, and then continued his monastic exploits in the Moscow Simonov Monastery. Once Metropolitan Photius, visiting the Simonov Monastery and going around the churches and monastery services, found Jonah sleeping in the bakery with a meek, majestic appearance and, noticing that the fingers of his right hand were folded, as if for blessing, he said to those around him that this young monk would one day be the first saint of the Russian land. Indeed, God's determination about the high service of Jonah gradually came to fruition in its time. By the election of the council of hierarchs, confirmed by the Grand Prince, Saint Jonah was elevated to the rank of Bishop of Ryazan and Murom, then in 1448 he was appointed to the see of the Metropolitanate of All Russia.

The Mystery of Pentecost (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

The Mystery of Pentecost 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

Christ, after His Ascension into heaven, according to His testimony, sent, on the fiftieth day from His Resurrection and the tenth from His Ascension, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father.

Christ Himself had foretold to the Disciples the mission of the Holy Spirit: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). And immediately after that He said: “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). And then He said: “It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).

The coming of the Holy Spirit to the Disciples took place on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13). Pentecost held an important place in the lives of the Apostles. Since they had previously undergone purification of heart and illumination – something that also existed in the Old Testament, in the Prophets and Righteous – then they saw the Risen Christ and on the day of Pentecost they became members of the risen Body of Christ. This has a special significance, because each Apostle had to have the Risen Christ within him.

June: Day 14: Holy Prophet Elisha

June: Day 14:
Holy Prophet Elisha
 
(The Reasons Why Elders Should Be Respected)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. One day the Prophet Elisha, whose feast day is celebrated today, entered the city of Bethel, whose inhabitants were drowning in wickedness. Their wickedness had reached such a point that fathers did not teach their children piety. A crowd of children met the venerable elder and began to laugh at his external shortcomings, and at the fact that he had no hair on his head. The children shouted after him: "Go away, bald one!" The Prophet Elisha looked at them with sadness and saw that there was nothing good in their hearts; he condemned their deed, and God confirmed the judgment of His Prophet. Two she-bears came out of the forest and tore the children to pieces. Forty-two of them perished.

The Depiction of the "Kosmos" in the Pentecost Icon

According to iconographer Photios Kontoglou:

"Below the bench on which they (the apostles) are seated, the figure of an old man is portrayed, with a crown on his head and with a defined, round beard, who is holding out a sheet with both his hands; on this sheet are twelve scrolls, which are rolled-up papers. This old man represents the Kosmos (World), and the paper scrolls represent the twelve regions that were ordained for the spreading of the gospel throughout the World by the twelve Apostles. In older icons of Pentecost, in place of the Kosmos (the old man) we find depictions of assorted people of different nations dressed in unusual garments, all looking upwards as if listening in amazement to the apostlic message, and above them is the inscription: PEOPLE, RACES AND LANGUAGES. These figures represent the people of various nations, who happened to be in Jerusalem on the day of the Pentecost at the moment of the descent of the Holy Spirit, and who, on learning of the tumult that was caused by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, crowded into the building that housed the apostles and then stood in amazement, when each one heard - in his own language - the sermon that came forth from the mouths of Christ's disciples, exactly as reported in the Acts of the Apostles."

June: Day 13: Holy Martyr Aquilina of Byblos

June: Day 13:
Holy Martyr Aquilina of Byblos
 
(Lessons From Her Life: Love of Prayer and Patience Are the Great Virtues of a Christian)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The soul of the twelve-year-old Holy Martyr Aquilina, whose memory is celebrated today, matured early for the highest spiritual feat, prepared for the feat by the Christian upbringing she received from her parents (who lived in the 3rd century in the Phoenician city of Byblos or Vivlos). Worthy fruit was borne by the Christian teachings with which God-loving people hastened first of all to nourish the soul of their child from the earliest age. And it is good for them that they did not neglect this holy work, did not postpone it until unknown future days. They died, but their ten-year-old orphan had already managed to receive into her soul the faith of Christ, the pledge of immortal life, the pledge and union with her parents in the eternal Kingdom of God.

Thus, at the age of ten, Aquilina was left an orphan. Although she lived in a city where there were already many Christians at the end of the third century, many of her friends were children of pagans. Aquilina, who remembered her mother’s instructions well, was attentive and zealous in fulfilling them; “she especially loved to pray to God,” love for Whom her mother knew how to instill in her heart with the first awakening of consciousness. One can imagine how astonished the young Christian was when she learned that her friends did not know the true God, that they were being instilled with the worship of idols. She tried to convince them of the falsity of such worship; she constantly spoke to them about the God Whom she herself had been taught to worship, and about the Christian teaching in which her parents had raised her.

June: Day 12: Venerable Onouphrios the Great

 

June: Day 12:
Venerable Onouphrios the Great
 
(On the Existence of Guardian Angels)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable Onouphrios, whose memory is celebrated today, was one of the great ascetics and models of strict monastic desert life. At first he labored in one of the Thebaid monasteries (in the 4th century). Then, for 60 years, he labored in complete solitude and silence in the desert. Only one day before his death did a man see him: it was Venerable Paphnutios, brought here by inspiration from God to hear the story of the extraordinary life of the angelic ascetic and to bury his toiling body.

The Venerable Paphnutios, who had undertaken a journey with the purpose of seeing the life of ascetics in the inner remote desert, and who had already been struck by the meeting with many of them living a truly supernatural life, finally met the Venerable Onouphrios. He was an old man with such long hair on his head and beard that they covered him to his feet, replacing clothing. The hermit received the stranger affably and entered into conversation with him, and told him the following about himself: 

The Nurses of Saint Luke the Surgeon

The surgical instruments of St. Luke

Anna Bezrukova recalls:

"I was a nurse from 1942-45 in Krasnoyarsk. Saint Luke loved us and taught us everything. He would advise doctors in the city hospitals.

They brought us seriously ill people, I saw that he prayed before the operation. If there was a fatal outcome, he suffered a lot, cried, locked himself in his room and prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased.

The authorities did not even allow him to eat in the hospital canteen, he was almost always hungry. The nurses brought him food. 

He never got indignant. He lived next to the hospital to be closer to the patients. He lived modestly, observed the fasts.