September: Day 5:
Holy Righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth
(About the Power of Parental Love for Their Children)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
(About the Power of Parental Love for Their Children)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The Holy Righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth, whose memory is celebrated today, were the parents of John the Baptist. Zechariah was a Jewish priest, Elizabeth was the sister of Anna, the mother of the Most Holy Theotokos. They were righteous before God, but until old age they had no children and were very sad about this, because the Jews thought that whoever does not have children does not have God's blessing. Finally, the Lord heard their prayer. He was pleased to resolve Elizabeth's barrenness. According to the prediction of the angel who appeared to Zechariah in the temple on the right side of the altar of incense, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, John, who was the forerunner and baptizer of the Lord. This is narrated in detail at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. During the slaughter of children by Herod in Bethlehem and its environs, Saint Elizabeth and the infant John hid from the murderers in a cleft in the mountain, but Herod demanded that Zechariah give him his son. Since Zechariah did not fulfill this insane and cruel demand, then for this, by order of Herod, he himself was killed between the temple and the altar. Soon after this, John's mother, Saint Elizabeth, also died.
II. Parents are ready to sacrifice not only their property, but their health and life itself for the good of their children; they have such a strong love for their children that they are ready to make any sacrifice for the sake of their children's temporary and eternal happiness. It is about this parental love that we will speak at this time.
"Love suffers long, love is kind," says the Holy Apostle Paul. And if any love suffers long, if any love is kind, then this is parental love.
a) What will a father not forgive his son? How grievously did Absalom offend David, his father, by rising up against him with his rebellious subjects? But listen to what David says to his military commanders: "Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom" (2 Kings 18:5). Truly, parental embraces are not closed even to prodigal children. What labors will a parent not undertake, what deprivations will they not endure for their children?
b) There is no sacrifice that parents would not make for their children; they deny themselves everything, sometimes the most necessary things, and do not drink or eat, and all this so that their children are well-fed; they walk around barefoot and almost naked, so that their children are dressed and shod.
We are involuntarily reminded here of the following touching example of paternal love for children, borrowed from history. On that fateful day in the year 390 A.D., in the city of Thessaloniki, by order of the Emperor Theodosius, about 7,000 people were beaten in the circus for rebellion, without distinction as to who was guilty or innocent, who was a citizen or a foreigner. The stories of this massacre were full of extremely touching incidents. One of them was remembered for a particularly long time: an unfortunate father took his two young sons with him to the circus. When the murderers reached him, he managed to move them and persuade them to save at least one of the two boys for him. But when he was ordered to make his choice between them, his heart failed him: he could not choose one of his own sons in order to give the other up to be killed. They were both equally dear to him. Then he gave them both along with himself to the sword of the brutal murderers. (See Farrar's work: “The Life and Works of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church”, 1891 edition, p. 556).
Oh! Forgotten be the right hand of a son or daughter if they forget the illnesses and labors, worries and love, sleepless nights, the tireless labors of their parents.
c) But nowhere is parental love expressed with such amazing force as when children are ill. How much sorrow is heard in the words of the father: “Lord, have mercy on my son, he is possessed with a demon at the full moon, he suffers grievously; he often throws himself into the fire, and often into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him” (Matt. 17:14, 15, 16). Or what a heart-rending cry breaks out from the soul of the Canaanite woman: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, my daughter is cruelly possessed with a demon!” The daughter suffers; but the mother suffers even more, which is why she says: “Have mercy on me, Lord.” There is no greater misfortune for parents than the illness of their children. Children are ill, and nothing pleases them, nothing brings them joy. The sun’s light cannot illuminate the gloomy face of a parent whose child is ill. With tears they greet the day, with tears they see it off. And when the merciful God hears the prayer and raises up the sick one, who can describe the joy of the parents?
d) Physical illnesses of children are hard on parents, and the parental word is true: "I would rather be ill than my children." But moral illnesses of children are incomparably harder. The former do not bring dishonor to the parent; the latter dishonor the parents. For parents there is no greater shame than to have wicked children. "An undisciplined child is a disgrace to its father" (Sir. 22:3). "A child that goes astray puts his parents to shame" (Prov. 29:15). Physical illnesses arouse sympathy for parents, and they hear words of sympathy from all sides. Bad people directly reproach parents for the vices of their children. "Your children are drunk," they say!.. But good people, although they sympathize with the parents, do not express this sympathy; for in fact, how can one say to parents: "what a pity that your children are bad?" Will it not be hard for them to hear? And so the unfortunate parent does not receive with a word of sympathy from anywhere; and they themselves do not dare to express their sorrow to others. They hide it in the depth of their heart, make vows, call for help from the saints of God, and cry out to God: "Hear me, O Lord! attend to the voice of my supplication." But this is a misfortune: physical illnesses are sometimes miraculously healed, through the prayer and faith of those praying. A child is dangerously ill; so the doctors give up and sentence him to death; but the prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him from the bed of bitterness. And how often this happens! It is not so with psychic illnesses, with passions. Here healing depends as much on God's grace as on the sufferer's own will - on the free will of a human being, which the Lord, having given once, does not wish to take away. If the wicked do not want to correct themselves, the prayers of their parents will not help. Alas, another parent in spiritual sorrow often has to speak with the wise son of Sirach: “We mourn for the dead because they have no access to light. We ought to mourn for fools, because they have no access to intelligence. In fact, we should go into deeper mourning for fools, because the life they lead is worse than death. The dead are at least at rest. For seven days we mourn the dead, but a foolish or ungodly person causes a lifetime of grief” (Sir. 22:11-12).
III. May the Lord teach children to value the love of their parents and may He save parents from the misfortune of having disobedient and spoiled children!
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.