It was still night, and I was delighting in communion with my Jesus.

 

It was still night, and I was delighting in communion with my Jesus.

The third hour of the day had not yet begun.

Then I thought to myself: “Everything is silent; all things are at rest.”

But suddenly a shudder ran through my body.

I understood that I had been mistaken.

In the stillness, it seemed to me that a thousand times a thousand voices had arisen.

Once again, I thought:

How many souls, restless upon beds of suffering, in their homes or in hospitals, are unable to close their eyes in sleep at this very hour, when I had imagined that all things were growing still?

Who cares for them?

 

Who will go to them tomorrow and tell them, in the language that the sick can understand, that someone loves them and expects something of them?

 

How many parents are keeping a dreadful vigil at this very moment, knowing that in just a few hours the hungry mouths of their children will open, only to remain hungry still?

 

Who is praying for them?

 

How many millions of people sleep this night as though they were dead, and yet, when dawn breaks, will rise as though they were dead still, because no one has yet told them that Someone, for their sake, ascended a Cross, so that they might become children of the Resurrection?

 

Who will carry to them this message of joy, which perhaps they do not expect, yet so desperately need?

 

And finally, how many young people, lost in the darkness of night while I hear nothing, are staggering through brightly illuminated lounges and glittering halls?

 

Who will show them that what they seek is not to be found there?

 

Everything seems to be silent, and yet everything is crying out.

 

Now my ears hear cries, the ears of my soul. Voices of anguish, of expectation, of searching, resound all around me.

 

I hear them.

 

I had almost forgotten them;

 

such a poor, wretched heart am I!

 

I believe that even when these people seem to drive me away, in truth, they are calling me.

 

And I, sent forth by that Father of mine, even as I keep vigil, am asleep.

 

For me He had spoken:

 

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead.”

 

 Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra

A person who gives alms receives a great blessing.

 "A person who gives alms receives a great blessing. When you give alms, do not offer things that are fit only for the trash; rather, give the very best to the stranger and the poor. Parents should not be distressed that they have no material inheritance to leave their children; instead, they should focus on their children’s spiritual progress—God will take care of the rest."

Lamprini Vetsiou (✞ 17-10-2002), from Agia Paraskevi, Arta

Today the Church in this country remembers the story of Tarore.

 

Today the Church in this country remembers the story of Tarore.

She was a 12-year-old Māori girl whose tragic death on this day in 1836 became a catalyst for forgiveness and the spread of Christianity across New Zealand.

Tarore was the daughter of Wiremu Ngākuku, a chief. She had learned to read from missionaries and carried a treasured Māori translation of Saint Luke’s Gospel. She recited it to large gatherings – she was a young lay evangelist among her people.

While travelling with her mission school, Tarore was killed during a raid by members of a rival iwi (tribe). Her Gospel book was stolen by one of the warriors. Māori custom demanded utu (revenge), but at her tangi (funeral), her father publicly forgave the attackers, saying he would leave justice to God.

Tarore’s stolen Gospel According to St Luke was later read by the warrior who had taken it, and its message changed him. He sought forgiveness from Ngākuku, and reconciliation followed. That same copy of Luke’s Gospel travelled south, sparking evangelism among other iwi and contributing to the conversion of many Māori to faith in Christ.

—Do you have something hopeful to tell us, Father?

  

“—Do you have something hopeful to tell us, Father?

—Hopeful? Why... this morning we celebrated the Divine Liturgy! We brought Christ down to earth! What greater thing could we possibly expect?”

+ Konstantinos Stratigopoulos

Holy New Martyr John of Monemvasia (+ 1773)

 Saint John was born in 1758 near the city of Monemvasia. His father was a priest from Geraki, and his mother was from the neighboring village of Gouves. It was in Gouves that the father of John was assigned as a priest, and there John was born. From a young age John tried to emulate his father by helping him work in the church. He was known for his exemplary behavior, and referred to by other children as the "priest's son".

In the year 1770 the army of the Albanian Hatzi Osman defeated the Greek resistance, and arriving in Monemvasia they killed John's father and enslaved both him and his mother. They were taken to Larissa, where they were sold-off two or three times separately.

After two years they were bought by the same man, a Turkish landowner. This Turk did not have any children, and seeing John's talents (who was exceptionally smart for his age, obedient and a hard worker) he thought, along with his wife, to make John their God-child. Therefore, every day they tried to convince him to leave the faith of the Christians and become a Turk. Initially they tried to convince him with flattery and promises, but later they used terrible tortures to try to overcome the steadfastness of John (who was only 15 years old), who kept his Christian faith unwavering.

One day his master, tired of trying to convince him to convert, in anger led him to the courtyard of the mosque. Many Muslims were gathered there, and with blows and terrible threats they urged him to convert and become a Turk. John's answer, however, was clear: "I am not a Turk, I am a Christian and I want to die as a Christian."

Besides this, the Turk and his wife tried every day with magic and evil seductions to get the Saint to lose his mind and give in to carnal desires and then to become a Turk. But John, having God inside of him, remained pure from everything. Divine Grace protected him from all the diabolical devices of the Turk's wife.

Soon came the fifteen days of fasting before the Dormition of the Theotokos. The Turk realized that John did not want to spoil the fast, so he locked him up in a barn. He kept him there for the entire fifteen days and hung him up, lit fire to the straw to cause smoke, and hit him with a sword, all the while trying to make him eat and to spoil the fast. But Saint John did not even taste the food, but prayed to the Virgin Mary to help him not to break the fast, preferring to be killed than to spoil his fasting.

The master, seeing that he remained unconvinced, left him without food for two and three days. His mother, on seeing him deadened by the tortures and the fasting, tried to convince him to give in, saying: "Eat from these dishes my son so you won't die, and God and the Panagia will forgive you, because they're not your wishes, for you are doing them out of necessity. Console me, your poor and upset mother, and don't seek death and leave me alone in this slavery and exile."

To his mother's pleas, John replied: "Why are you doing this mother, and why are you crying? Why don't you emulate the Patriarch Abraham, who for the love of God wanted to sacrifice his only son, but you only cry and weep. I am a priest's son and I should be keeping the laws and customs of our Church more than the sons of lay-people, for when we don't keep the small things [of the faith], how can we keep the large things?"

Soon after this response the furious Turk, on 19 October 1773, gave him a fatal stab in the heart. After two days Saint John died and received the crown of martyrdom.

His memory is honored by our Church on the 21st of October. His skull and portions of his hand and feet are located at the Zermbitsa Monastery in Sparta, and other portions of his relics are in the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Larissa and Voulkanou Monastery in Messenia.