"I came to kiss Jesus!'

  God sending me night inspiration from the past, to fortify me in these terrible days: The drunken young Russian man came into St. Theodosius Cathedral in the middle of Holy Friday Night, (in Russian): "Why are you here??" He said: "I CAME TO KISS JESUS!" 

Monday: June 28/July 11: On this eve of this  Great Feast/Celebration  of The Holy, Glorious,, and All-Praised  Leaders of the Apostles, PETER AND PAUL:  Who Preached the Good News-The Holy Gospel to the Whole World-

 

To continue my memory: About an example, that God allowed me to observe long ago,  of what WE ALL, EACH OF US NEED TO DO: In spite of any failing or bad habits or sins we may have burdening our souls: AND to be non-judgmental  of the failings and sins of others!, To REFORM OUR LIVES, & to COME AND IN LOVE WITH OUR SAVIOUR: TO COME AND KISS JESUS!..TO LOVE AND TO SERVE HIM, .regardless of any other intervening obstacle or excuse, so that here on earth, NOW! BEFORE WE LEAVE OUR EARTHLY PERISHABLE BODIES,  we may be WITH THE LORD, and LATER, IN HEAVEN!  forever….so, that we, OUR REAL SELVES, OUR IMMORTAL SOULS! MAY BELONG… IN HEAVEN…where only the sanctified, the Saints may dwell. 

 

SO, ….But, rather than to throw the drunken young man  out of the church-as might have been done by others, in any church,  instead, two of the 4 door-keeper guardian men, after what  he told them & that they clearly perceived that he was in a repentant spirit, regardless of his obvious sin of drunkeness: “To Kiss Jesus”, then…. they could not… throw him out, but they  instead helped him, one on each of his sides, firmly  holding his arms,  to walk, without falling,  up to the plaschanitza/Holy Shroud, -Our Lord’s Sacred Dead BODY, and then to bow down and kiss his beloved entombed Saviour, and then to walk back safely out the door of the church, because he could not stand up nor walk without aid.

Drunk or not, they realized that he needed to, had a right to,  kiss his Jesus!!...as they were, with him, fellow Orthodox Christians!, and anyway, they had no right to JUDGE OR CONDEMN HIM!...but to HOPE FOR HIS REPENTANCE, and to condeme  only…. themselves, which is THE WAY OF The SAINTS, CHRIST’S TEACHING and THE ONLY PATH TO HEAVEN, entering The Narrow Gate, of The Gospel.

 

Likely he was one of the many very hard-working & struggling male members of that very large Orthodox Christian parish in Cleveland, Ohio, back in about 1962, -in that very industrialized   extreme northern part of  the Mid-Western region of America, -my native State of Ohio, which had a  huge Orthodox immigrant population, of every Orthodox ethnic group, -then it was an industrialy prosperous-giant of a city, sitting at the northern tip of Ohio, directly on  the southern shore of massive Lake Erie (one of the Five Great Lakes),  due north of which lake,  is Ontario, Canada, - whose large number of my St. Theodosius Parish communicant parish members, still then many of whom were of the very pious First Generation European immigrants & were then alive, (most who came to America, before World War I), but with growing numbers of their, American born  Second Generation children and Third Generation grand- children present,  were mostly of self-identified : Russian, Carpatho-Russian, Byelorussian, or Ukrainian, Georgian, and of smaller numbers of various  other new-immigrant ethnic-Orthodox nationalities, -some Arabs, some Greeks, etc. including lots of former  Ukrainian-Uniates (“Greek Catholics” under the pope),  many of whom worked in the, plentiful industrial jobs in THEN! economically robust Cleveland and who SOME OF WHICH, went to church at St. Theodosius Cathedral,  the ‘just atop  the hill’  visible for miles around, THAT exotic other-worldly looking, many onioned domed church, sitting atop, “Russian Hill”/”Literrary Heights”,  part of  then in 1962,  Cleveland’s largely new-immigrant settled foreign “West-Side”, set among or near to,   its  never-stopping,  huge  steel mills.

Most services were in Church Slavonic, & sermons at those services were in the standard Russian language,  but we had then an early all-English Sunday Liturgy, with a separate second, all Slavonic liturgy.. For myself, I regularly attended, as best I could,  all services in Slavonic and in English. And I treasure being a participant in the Slavonic vigil services and a witness of,  the saintly babushkas, always in a state of constant holy other-worldly prayer, grandmothers, whose holy presence inspired me, BEYOND ANY HUMAN LANGUAGE BARRIERS, and as I felt their sincere heart-warming spiritual GODLY LOVE and  holiness. Now, I have no doubt, that they all must be in Heaven!  -VECHNAYA PAMYAT! They greeted me, with SLAVA IESUSU KHRISTU ! ..Glory to Jesus Christ!, and I responded: SLAVA NA VECKI!:… Glory To Him forever!...i.e. WE PRAYED TOGETHER!, in which spiritual state, there are no human or cultural barriers!

 

This man  could not come in time for the earlier, massively  attended by a few thousand souls,  Great & Holy Friday Burial Service & Procession, but when he got off of his shift in the nearby steel mills, (whose furnaces never stopped burning),  and had… regrettably, drunk too much, he THEN remembered that, regardless… perhaps with guilt, he HAD TO COME AND GIVE HIS KISS TO HIS BELOVED SAVIOUR, lying now dead in His tomb.

The local custom there, was for a small volunteer group to keep an all-night death-watch vigil, over Christ’s holy  grave,  in the candle-lit church (whose sacred walls and ceiling  were all frescoed with wonderful heart-moving scenes of the marvelous Gospel recorded life of Christ and of Our Lord’s wonderful many saints). The church was dedicated to “Holy Hierarch Theodosius, The Archbishop and Wonderworker of Chernigov”, who lived at the end of the 1600’s, (Chernigov being, still there today, if power-mad dictator Putin doesn’t reduce it to rubble!,   a very old sacred Orthodox city of Kievan-Russ, in the north of Ukraine),  which church in Cleveland, was kept open all night, so any could come when they were able (such as blue-collar working men, as this one,  who worked in the local steel mills, etc) and venerate the Holy  Shroud/Christ Entombed,  and guarded by volunteer 4 strong door-keeper men, & with us, a small group,  keeping an all-vigil, chanting alternately in English and/or  Slavonic, The Acts Of The Holy Apostles, The Psalter, Akathists, etc,  over and in the immediate presence of Our Saviour’s Sacred  Body, HE WHO GAVE HIMSELF FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD!,-FOR ALL Mankind!, depicted in His, very large Plaschanitza/Shroud/Epitaphios , an unusually huge Shroud, -the biggest one I have ever seen!- with Christ’s Body almost life-sized, and His Shroud surrounded on three sides, a  hundred or so,  burning huge 4-6  foot high, very thick candles and many fragrant lilies and other flowers. …The Tomb of The King of Kings, The Reviled and Crucified King of The Jews, Jesus of Nazareth: 

“ARISE O GOD, JUDGE THOU THE EARTH!, FOR TO THEE BELONG ALL THE NATIONS!”

And so, God reminded me, last night, of that inspiring happening long ago,  to uplift my otherwise greatly wearied  soul, in these terrible depressing seemingly hopeless sad times, when it seems that evil is being victorious all over the earth, that:…. HE-GOD!.... IS ALWAYS ON HIS THRONE, THAT HE RULES ALL, and THAT IN THE END, HE!.-GOD ALMIGHTY! ..MAKES THINGS COME OUT AS HE WISHES!..i.e. “Man proposes, but God disposes!”

“FOR… OUR GOD!,… IS IN HEAVEN!... AND ON EARTH!,… AND HE DOES… WHATSOEVER!…. HE PLEASES!!”-

“When GOD!... so wills, He Who set in motion, the Order Of Nature:  the order of nature is…. overturned!”

“THOU!... ART THE GOD…. WHO WORKEST WONDERS!  ALLELUIA!”

AND MAY I, with God’s divine aid,  AND ALL OF US: regardless of all interfering circumstances or by our  intervening sins or for any excuses, “COME TO KISS JESUS!”…in this world…. And, may God grant…also,  in the next,…worshipping  at the feet of His Throne….To…. See The Lord!

Amen, and Amen!.

Grant this, O Lord!

EVENSO, COME QUICKLY LORD JESUS! COME QUICKLY!

Retired Psalm-Reader, the perpetually useless sinner, Daniel Everiss in the forest of southwestern Oregon, a wandering homeless pilgrim on this earth, seeking the New Jerusalem On High.

“O LORD, SAVE THE GOD-FEARING!,…. AND HEAR…. US!