October: Day 14: Teaching 1: Venerable Paraskeva

October: Day 14: Teaching 1:
Venerable Paraskeva
 
(The Great Significance of the Temple of God for Christians)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Paraskeva, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the 11th century. She was a Serbian Slav and was brought up in a God-fearing family. Once "in the temple" she was struck by the words of the Gospel: "Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself" (Mark 8:34), and from that time on she began to give everything to the poor and live for God. She often showed her zeal to serve her neighbor, as best she could, like a child, by giving her rich dress to a beggar she met, and in exchange for it she took and put on rags. She was reprimanded for this at home, but, prompted by pity and love, she again gave everything to the poor.

Having come of age, after the death of her parents, Paraskeva withdrew from the world. Having visited Constantinople and walked around its holy places, where she listened to the instructions of the ascetics, she settled on their advice in the suburb of Heraclea near the secluded Church of the Protection of the Mother of God, where she spent five years in strict fasting and constant prayer. After that, she went to Palestine and, having venerated the holy places, decided to live in the Jordan desert. Only God knows the struggle and labors that the hermit had to endure, but in Him she found the strength not to retreat from her desert feat even until old age. Then it was announced to her in a vision, “that she should return to her homeland, where she must leave her body on earth and pass in soul to God.”

Returning to her native land, Paraskeva settled there at the Church of the Holy Apostles and, two years later, one day in the midst of solitary prayer, she gave up her soul to God.

Her relics, revealed by a special vision, were distinguished by their incorruptibility and many miracles. They rest in Iasi, in the cathedral church.

II. Listening to the life of Saint Paraskeva, you saw, brethren, that the beginning of her pious life was a visit to the temple of God and the words of the Gospel heard there about following Christ. And very many people and even hardened sinners corrected their lives, having visited several times and even once in a Christian church for divine service.

The word of God, the church teaching of the pastor, the divine service, the sight of the faithful praying fervently, the sacred atmosphere of the temple often had such an effect on their souls that they left the temple as completely different people than when they came in. Visiting the temples of God is so beneficial and so important for the development and strengthening of our religious and moral life.

And how can it not develop when the temple is the house of God, a school of faith and piety and a place of healing for our physical and spiritual ailments?

a) The Temple of God is the house of God, the dwelling place of God, the visible heaven. In the temple of God, the Lord of heaven and earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, mysteriously and incomprehensibly abides, as He irrevocably promised His followers: "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). He is present here (in the temple) in the Gospel, in which He, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, "is hidden," and in the holy image of His life-giving Cross, and in the holy relics placed in the foundation of the altar, and in the holy antimension, but especially He is present in the mystery of His most pure Body and His most holy Blood.

In the temple of God, as in heaven, all the powers of heaven are present, the Most Holy Mother of God, the holy angels and the saints of God pray together with us, strengthen and raise our prayers to heaven, bringing down upon us by their intercession the grace of God. As in heaven the saints, surrounding the throne of the King of glory, glorify Him: so here on earth, in the temple they serve the clergy and pray together with them.

Thus, in the life of Saint Basil the Great it is narrated: "Once, when Saint Basil the Great was praying in the church, the pious clergy saw a heavenly light that illuminated and illumined the altar and the saint and the holy men in white vestments who surrounded the great bishop."

When Saint Sergius served the liturgy, an angel of the Lord served with him, as his disciples, Isaac the Silent and Macarius, testified, clearly seeing an angel of God serving with him in the altar. And a worthy monk of the monastery of the same Saint Sergius, Ignatius, after the blessed death of the Saint, saw that during the all-night vigil he stood in his abbot's place and participated with the brethren in church singing.

b) The Temple of God is a school of faith and piety. In the temple of God, through constant listening to the word of God, we receive knowledge of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, of His boundless properties - omnipresence, eternity, omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, justice; in it we perceive the saving truths about Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer of the human race from sin, damnation and death, and about the Holy Spirit, as the Sanctifier of the Church with her grace-filled mysteries. Here, when looking at the icons of the holy saints of God, their feats of piety are presented to us, their entire difficult life passes before our eyes.

The life of Symeon the Stylite tells us that one Sunday, when the weather was bad and he was not ordered to drive the flock out into the field (he was not taught anything as a child and he tended his father's flock), he, taking advantage of his free time, went to church with his parents and began to listen attentively to the divine service. The words of the Gospel especially deeply sank into the child's soul: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are the meek" (Matthew 5:3-5). Hearing this, thirteen-year-old Symeon, instead of going home, ran to a deserted place where he could think alone about what he had heard in church. There he threw himself on the ground and with tears began to ask God to guide and teach him. Having been enlightened from above to salvation, Symeon renounced the world and began to struggle on a pillar, pleasing God with prayer and all kinds of deprivations, for which ascetic life he inherited the heavenly abodes.

c) The Temple of God serves as a place of healing for our physical and spiritual infirmities. In the temple of God, saving holy mysteries are given to us; through them we receive healing from spiritual and physical illnesses and deliverance from sorrows, misfortunes, griefs and sufferings. The unfortunate receive consolation here, are content in poverty, are strong in weakness, the proud are humbled, the heart torn by sorrows asks for consolation here and finds peace.

Many examples convince us that the temple of God serves us as a spiritual hospital. Here is one of them:

There lived in Constantinople a young man who was so paralyzed that he could not only not walk, but even crawled along the ground with difficulty. One day, seeing that people were going to church with candles for the feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, he too, having bought a candle, crawled to church. On the way, Saint Nicholas himself appeared to him and asked him: "Who are you? Where are you crawling to? Why?" When the poor man gave him an answer, Saint Nicholas told him to crawl to church. The unfortunate man somehow crawled into the house of God, placed a candle there before the icon of Saint Nicholas and began to pray. Then, looking closely at the icon, he noticed that an elder of exactly the same appearance had met him on the way. Then he began to ask Saint Nicholas for help with tears, and what happened? His joints suddenly began to straighten out little by little: he could already stand on his feet, and when he anointed himself with oil from the lamp burning before the icon of the Saint of God, he completely recovered.

III. May the Lord help us, following the example of the saints, to zealously visit the temple of God and find here healing for our spiritual and physical ailments!

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.