“May we never risk the life of our souls by being resentful or by bearing grudges.”
St. Gregory of Nyssa
Acts 21:26-32
In those days, Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself with them and went into the temple, to give notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for every one of them. When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up all the crowd, and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching men everywhere against the people and the law and this place; moreover he also brought Greeks into the temple, and he has defiled this holy place.” For they had previously seen Trophimos the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was aroused, and the people ran together; they seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. And as they were trying to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. He at once took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them; and when they saw the tribune and the solders, they stopped beating Paul.
John 16:2-13
The Lord said to his disciples, “The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
“I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
Saint Kevin of Glendalough
Saint Kevin (Coemgen) was born in Leinster in the early decades of the sixth century, the age of Saints Columba (June 9), Columbanus of Luxeuil (November 21), Comgall of Bangor (May 10), Finnian of Clonard (December 12), Kieran of Clonmacnoise (September 9), and many other great saints.
This holy ascetic belonged to a noble family which had included several Kings of Leinster. He himself, however, was a model of humility and self-denial. There are several miraculous stories connected with his birth and childhood, but most are unreliable.
The holy youth was baptized by a priest named Cronan and was named Kevin, which means "fair-begotten." There are so many saints named Cronan that it is not clear which one baptized Saint Kevin. When he was seven years old, his parents sent him to be taught by Saint Petroc (June 4), who happened to be visiting Ireland at the time.
As a boy of twelve, Saint Kevin was placed in the charge of three holy Elders: Eogoin of Ardstraw (August 23), Lochan, and Enna. Little is known of these teachers or where their establishment was located. His secular studies were certainly enhanced by spiritual instruction. He learned to read the Holy Scriptures, and to profit from the example of the virtuous men and women of the Old and New Testaments.
Saint Kevin was so handsome that a young girl named Kathleen became inflamed with desire for him, but the holy youth resisted all her allurements. She pestered him so much with her attentions that he fled from her, just as Joseph fled from Potiphar's wife (Genesis 39:12). Kathleen followed him and found him alone in a field, so she approached him and threw her arms around him. Arming himself with the Sign of the Cross, and filled with the Holy Spirit, Saint Kevin broke away from her and ran into the woods. She soon discovered him hiding in a bed of nettles. Grabbing a bunch of nettles, the saint struck her about the face, hands and feet. Wounded by the nettles, the girl's passion quickly cooled. She fell on her knees in repentance, begged forgiveness from God and from Saint Kevin, and promised to become a nun.
After successfully resisting the temptations of the flesh, Saint Kevin continued to devote himself to his studies, and longed to live the monastic life as a hermit. This was a common practice in the Celtic Church, which was influenced by the lives of the Egyptian desert dwellers, and by monks who had come from Gaul. Saint Kevin was anxious to leave the monastery, but his three Elders would not let him go. However, he had acquired a reputation for holiness, and people from the surrounding area came to seek his advice. Desiring to flee from such unwelcome attention, he left the monastery in secret and went into the wilderness.
It is said that an angel led him to Glendalough (the Vale of the Two Lakes) where he lived in the hollow of a tree somewhere by the shores of the Upper Lake. The ascetic remained in this place for several days, living on wild herbs and water. A cow wandered off and came to the tree where the Saint was living, and began to lick his clothing. After some time had passed, the cow showed an unusual increase in its milk, so her owner told his herdsman follow the animal. She led him to Glendalough, and there the herdsman discovered Saint Kevin, weak with hunger, and hiding in the tree.
The herdsman had to remove Saint Kevin on a litter by force, since the holy ascetic did not wish to leave. As he was being carried off, the trees bent down to make way for them. Saint Kevin then bestowed his blessing on the forest.
News of Saint Kevin reached his three Elders, who came to bring him back to their monastery. Recognizing the holiness of his life, they understood that they had nothing more to teach him, so they blessed him to leave the monastery.
A certain Bishop Lugidus ordained Saint Kevin to the priesthood, and sent him and a few other monks to found a new church. He spent a little time converting people at Cluainduach, but later moved back to Glendalough.
Guided by an angel, Saint Kevin crossed the Wicklow Mountains and established a monastery in the lower part of the valley where two rivers flow together. Once the monastery was organized, he appointed one of the monks as abbot, and then he retired to the upper valley a mile away to resume his life of solitude. He built a small dwelling on a narrow place between the mountain and the lake, where there were dense woods and clear rivulets. Some sources say that Saint Kevin lived there for four years, while others say seven years.
During this period of his life, wild animals would come to drink water out of his hands. Once during Lent, Saint Kevin stood praying in his hut with his hand sticking out of the window. Just then a blackbird nested in his hand and laid an egg. So gentle and compassionate was the Saint that he remained in this position until the eggs hatched and the fledglings were able to fly away.
There is a small cave above the Upper Lake known as Saint Kevin's Bed. One year he retired there for Lent, and an angel came and told him he would have to move because a rock was about to fall on that spot. Saint Kevin told the angel he could not interrupt his Lenten struggles or leave that place. On the eve of Pascha the angel returned to take him away. The venerable one protested that he would like to remain there for the rest of his life. He was persuaded to go, however, by the angel's promise that great benefits would follow for all who would come there in the future, both to live in the monastic city and to be buried there. Just as he was leaving with the angel, the rock came tumbling down and landed on the very spot where he had been standing.
Crossing over the lake, they discussed the problem of finding sufficient space for so many people. The angel said that if Saint Kevin wished, God could transform the four mountains surrounding the valley to level fields, fruitful and easy to work. The holy ascetic replied that he would not want God's creatures to perish on his account. All of the animals of those mountains were tame and humble toward him, and they would be saddened by this proposal.
When they arrived at the chosen spot, Saint Kevin saw that the ground was rocky and unsuitable for burial. The angel fixed that by clearing all the stones away. The site is to the east of the smaller (Lower) lake. Saint Kevin told the local chieftain Dimma and his sons to cut away the thorns and thistles, and to make this a beautiful spot. It is not certain just where in the valley Saint Kevin fell asleep in the Lord. It was not at the hermitage, however, because he sent a party of monks there to pray for him. Local tradition says that Saint Kevin is buried in the church of the Mother of God in that vicinity.
Saint Kevin was succeeded as abbot by his nephew Molibba (Jan. 8), who seems to have been the first bishop there. According to the Annals of Ulster, the holy abbot and confessor Kevin departed to Christ on June 3, 618.
Human Reality as a Locus of Pain and Christ’s Truth as a Reality of Hope
Fr. Gennadios Manolis, Theologian
The greatest problem we face today is that we’re living without the sense of the presence of God in our lives and think that everything depends on us personally. But such a way of life leads to atheism and self-deification. In other words, the self and its satisfaction becomes the center of our life and this makes us, apart from atheists, misanthropists as well. On all levels, today’s crisis demonstrates the secular way of life most of us lead. Modern life shows us Christians that we no longer live in a spirit of communion with God or with other people. Christians love God first and, by extension, other people, but these days we’ve forgotten that we’re one family, one body- the body of Christ.
If I had to give a definition of the crisis, I wouldn’t want to add anything to what’s already been written, but instead I’d repeat the Lord’s words to Nicodemus who came at night to learn from Him: ‘And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God’ (Jn. 19-21).
If, over the course of our life, we sow wickedness instead of love, the time will come when we’ll reap what we’ve sown. If we’re not pleased with the harvest, we’ll certainly have nobody to blame but ourselves, because we’re each of us answerable for our own works. Unfortunately, most people today are, indeed, reaping what they’ve sown and don’t like the harvest, but instead of acknowledging their own responsibility, look for the reason outside themselves. In the end, it’s easier to pass the buck onto God Himself, putting what happens to them down to punishment or even to His indifference.
But there’s no way that God can act as a disciplinarian, as if He were waiting in a corner for us to transgress and then inflicting condign punishment on His own creation, whom He made purely and simply out of love. Nor, of course, can He be indifferent, given that His love stretched to the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross for our sake. God, Who is absolutely free, made us, and gave us the freedom and the chance to live therein, choosing for ourselves the way we want to go forward. This is a freedom which often becomes a stumbling-block or, rather, a heavy chain, because we don’t know how to handle it.
But as a good Father, He waits, He awaits our repentance, change, return, all the while looking out of the window, like the caring father in the parable, hoping to see us returning to Him, so that he can rush out to meet and welcome us. And, because He’s fair, when the time comes He’ll pay us our wages, which will be commensurate to the work we’ve done. And, again, He didn’t leave us in ignorance. He gave us the equipment for us to produce a great deal of fruit, He showed us how to do it, and left us to choose. So the choice of whether to make the effort or not is ours.
It’s not good enough for the identity of ‘Christian’ to be no more than a label or a capacity that’s dormant because we don’t strive in our everyday lives to be Christians, in other words to imitate Christ in essence not merely in form. By definition, all members of the Church are holy, since ‘As many of you have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ’ (Gal. 3, 27). Putting on Christ means that I’m holy, that I’m participating in God’s grace. The aim of the Church is to preserve its members in holiness and to increase this until they’re deified. But over time we’ve forgotten this and have fallen. We’ll not stay down, though, we’ll get up again: ‘But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found to be sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid’ (Gal. 2, 17).
The first misfortune of the human race was precisely this misuse of freedom, which took us out of paradise. Since then, every kind of misfortune we’ve ever encountered has had the same root cause. Misuse of our freedom makes us create greater and lesser problems every day for other people and for ourselves. This is also true in our inter-personal relationships, where our unfair ‘I want’ injures those around us and also acts negatively on the wider social level, so that the world resembles a jungle.
Who’s responsible for flooding, when we’re the ones who cut down the forests? Or the cancers affecting so many people, when we’re the ones who are poisoning the atmosphere? Or the slaughter when we’re the ones who start wars? Who’s responsible when nature wreaks its revenge because we’ve exploited it so horribly? Or the toxins we ingest when all we’re interested in is profit? Social injustice, hunger in the Third World, when the left-overs from the rich would fill bellies? If we’ve made our life ‘hell’, then we’re the ones who are responsible. And if, again, we want the earth and our life to become ‘paradise’ again (or rather a foretaste of paradise), all we have to do is implement God’s word. This is where the Church helps us to put things right.
The Church is the world on the right track. It’s real society. Within the Church, people experience society. Not merely some relationship with other people, but also with God. It’s the society within which the purpose of our existence is fulfilled.
So have we really attempted this in practice? Have we, in our lives, applied the command ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’? We see other people and we love them, but not as ourselves, rather as an extension of ourselves. God is like the sun: those who are illumined by Him are filled with life and enjoy His blessings; those who are in darkness are condemned to wither. The light illumines and warms, but if we remove ourselves from it, we enter darkness and cold. The greatest privilege in our relationship with God is the freedom He’s given us to choose whether we want to enter His light or to remain in the darkness. This initiative that He grants us makes His love perfect, because it’s not oppressive. It’s up to us whether we welcome Him into our life or not.
The difficulties, the pain, the sorrows we often face in our life aren’t given by God, but they’re allowed by him to enter our life as opportunities, as in the case of righteous Job. They become the causes for inner renewal, confession of sins and they lead to remorse, which is a way out of unhappiness. Genuine repentance brings us to God and then God’s hand comes and tugs us, as He tugged the hands of Adam and Eve at His resurrection. It may often seem that He’s delaying, but He always arrives, not when we want but when’s best.
We’re all called upon to take an interest in those who are suffering, to help those who are starving, to pray for those who meet an untimely death, to struggle for justice, to give joy to the sick, strength to the those in pain, to share their pain, to alleviate their sorrow a little, to give them a smile, to provide support for others on their journey, as others will do for us.
The next time people think ‘Where are you, God?’ or ‘Why me?’, perhaps they’ll think ‘Where am I when others are in pain?’ ‘Why not me, God?’. The next time they wonder why God’s abandoned them, they might consider that they’re the ones who’ve abandoned Him, who’ve prevented Him from entering their life. Then His words will sound hard, but fair: ‘for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me…. Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life’.
Perhaps, in the end, the time has come for change. Let’s keep our mind away from politics and economics, because they’ve failed. We need real change, internal and personal. Perhaps it’s time for us to become Christians in practice, not merely in name. The Church is continuously calling us: ‘Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the time of repentance’. If we can’t change the world, let’s not wait for it to change, but, rather, let’s change ourselves and when we do so, somebody else will as well, the few will become the many and the many will become all. The Church calls on each of us to make this change, which is nothing other than the return to our ancient beauty, to the place we started out from.
Living in Christ is today the only cure for self-love, from which arise the passions of hedonism, ambition and avarice. The crisis is due to people’s desire to satisfy their passions and weaknesses, in other words the arrogance of their life-style. The only way of dealing with this is to turn away from the egocentric and egotistical approach to life and to assume a Christ-centered attitude. God has to become the center of our life again, together with other people, our neighbor. Let’s change the world by changing ourselves first. There’s not much time, so we must hurry: yesterday’s long gone, we’re hardly living today, and tomorrow’s already upon us.
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 6/2: Matins 8:30 a.m.
Tuesday 6/3: no services or events
Wednesday 6/4: no services or events
Thursday 6/5: Matins 8:30 a.m.
Friday 6/6: Matins 8:30 a.m.
Saturday 6/7: Catechumen Class 4:30 p.m.; Choir Practice 5 p.m.; Vigil for Pentacost 6 p.m.
Sunday 6/8: Holy Pentecost: Festal Hours, Divine Liturgy, Kneeling Vespers 9:15 a.m. (Potluck meal to follow)
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Christ the Savior Orthodox Church is located in Southbury, Connecticut, and is part of the New England Diocese of the Orthodox Church of America.
Mailing address: Christ the Savior Church, 1070 Roxbury Road, Southbury, CT 06488
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Fr. Moses Locke can be reached at frmoseslocke@gmail.com