Dear Parishioners, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

Today, on the final Sunday of the Paschal season, we read the Gospel excerpt about how Christ performed a great and unheard-of miracle. We hear how He opened the eyes and gave sight to a man born blind. This event can be explained in another way as well. Our Lord and God Jesus Christ didn’t heal the blind man, but did something much greater. He took earth, spit in it, and out of this mud formed brand new eyes for the unfortunate blind man and, in such a way, clearly showed His divine nature (remember how God made the first man out of earth on the sixth day of the week).

The spiritual meaning of today is concisely and clearly expressed in the kontakion (a church hymn. Can be found in the Typica for this week). The meaning is as follows: all of us are spiritually blind because we sin, and are obliged to come to our Saviour in repentance for Him to give us spiritual sight. Our Lord did a great thing when He opened the eyes of the blind man, but what is more amazing is that He opened his spiritual eyes. To become convinced that the blind man received special spiritual strength we need only remember the second half of today’s Gospel reading. There we read how he boldly defended Christ before the Jews. He was cursed, threatened, and finally denied the right to attend the synagogue. In such a way he becomes a prototype of the martyrs.

Today the Russian Church also celebrates the memory of two saintly brothers – Cyril the Philosopher and Methodius, the teachers of the Slavs. They came to the spiritually blind Slavs and, through their missionary and apostolic labours, opened their spiritual eyes. Those of us who are of Slavic descent and are able to hear the Word of God in our native language are obliged to acknowledge their contribution to our spiritual life and, of course, to thank them. The best way to do this is to put into practice the teachings of our Saviour Jesus Christ in our daily lives, which, for many of us, are accessible thanks to the translations Sts. Cyril and Methodius made so many years ago.

Today let’s pray to the risen Saviour, through the intercessions of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, that we do not remain in spiritual blindness, but are enlightened with the Light of Truth.

priest Alexis

P.S. The service to Sts. Cyril and Methodius is quite beautiful and interesting for several different reasons. If you’re interested and you have time, it would be good to have a closer look at it. Cyril and Methodius are the apostles of the Slavs and thus their service is, in places, similar to the service to Sts. Peter and Paul (for example, you can compare the troparia and the stikhira at "Lord I have Cried"). These parallels in the services nicely accent the idea that the labours of Cyril and Methodius are similar to those of the apostles Peter and Paul.

It’s also interesting to note that this service was composed by a 5th grade student, Alyosha Khrapovitsky. Aleksei Khrapovitsky, a son of a Russian aristocrat, was raised in a pious household, but none of his relatives were priests or monks. Despite this, and against the wishes of his parents, after graduating from high school he studied at the Theological Academy in Petersburg, accepted monastic tonsure with the name Anthony, and was later ordained a bishop. By the time of the Russian Revolution and the Local Council of the Russian Church of 1917-18, Archbishop Anthony was one of the most influential and popular hierarchs of the Russian Church. After the Civil War he found himself outside of Russia, where he became one of the founding members of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and its first First-Hierarch.

Our parish has many small children, and I hope that they understand that they are members of the Church just like everyone else and that their labours and prayers are accepted just like the labours of the adults. Hopefully, if they have certain talents and want to use them for the good of the Church, their parents will support them. Isn’t it wonderful that a small boy had such love for Cyril and Methodius that he wrote for them, in Church Slavonic, such an elegant service! It is also my hope that if one of our children shows signs of wanting to be a priest, choir director or a monastic that their parents will not dissuade them, but will instead encourage them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if new and talented servants of the Church would appear unexpectedly out of the midst of the young people of our little parish?