The glorious beheading of the Forerunner,
became an act of divine dispensation,
for he preached to those in hell the coming of the Savior.
Let Herodias lament, for she entreated lawless murder,
loving not the law of God, nor eternal life,
but that which is false and temporal.
-Hymn for the Feast, of The Beheading of the Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John.
“The highest light is God, unapproachable and ineffable, neither grasped by the mind nor expressed in language. It illumines every reason-endowed nature. It is to intelligible realities what the sun is to sense-perceptible realities. To the extent that we are purified it appears, to the extent that it appears it is loved, to the extent that it is loved it is again known. It both contemplates and comprehends itself and is poured out but a little to those outside itself. I speak of the light contemplated in the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, whose wealth is the confluence and the leaping forth of this radiance.”
-St. Gregory of Nazianzus (The Theologian), Oration 40, on Baptism
Thy precious Cross, O Christ God,
which Moses of old prefigured in his own person
when he overthrew Amalek and put him to flight;
which David commanded to be worshipped,
calling it Thy footstool:
this same Cross we sinners worship today with unworthy lips.
We praise Thee Who wast pleased to be nailed upon it,
and we cry to Thee:
“With the thief, make us worthy of Thy Kingdom, O Lord!”
Thy Cross, O Lord,
is life and resurrection for Thy people.
And we who put our trust in it
praise Thee, our God crucified in the flesh.
Have mercy on us!
Here is a good article by Patrick Henry Reardon about the Biblical passage referred to above, in which Moses interceded for the army of Israel as it did battle with the Amalekites: “The Best Intercessor in the Bible.”
“Moses conquered the Devil, wrote Gregory the Theologian,
‘by stretching out his hands upon the hill,
in order that the Cross, thus symbolized and prefigured,
might prevail.'”
St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco reposed in 1966. Twenty-five years later Hieromonk Peter Loukianoff, who had been close to St. John in the last few years of his life, and whose family had known the saint since the time they lived in Shanghai, wrote down his recollections: “Remembering Vladika [Bishop] John.”
Partly this was to correct falsehoods that had begun to circulate in the years since Archbishop John had reposed. In addition to conversations Acolyte Peter had with his bishop about various matters that might be of interest mainly in the altar, he relates many stories from everyday life that illustrate what kind of man St. John was, and the profound effect of his life on those who knew him.
He conveys how fatherly St. John was with the youth, including alar servers such as Peter — kind and gentle even when he was strict. Peter Loukianoff himself was consecrated a bishop in 2003, and was eventually elevated to the rank of Archbishop of the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America. He reposed in 2024.
One of the stories is about St. John’s feet:
From the day of his-monastic tonsure, Vladika slept in a sitting position. As a result he had swollen legs and it was painful for him to wear proper shoes, so he wore sandals. At home, in his cell, or when he served at St. Tikhon’s he often went barefoot–not for the sake of foolishness-for-Christ, but because it was easier on his feet.
Abbess Theodora, the late superior of Lesna Convent in France, told how once when Vladika was visiting the convent one of his legs gave him great pain, and she called a doctor, who prescribed rest in bed. Vladika thanked her for her solicitude but refused to lie in bed; nothing could persuade him. “Then,” related Matushka, “I myself don’t know how I was so bold, but I said to him bluntly, ‘Vladika, as the abbess of this convent, by the power given me by God, I order you to lie down.'” Vladika looked with surprise at the abbess, and went and lay down. The next morning, however, he was in church for Matins, and that was the end of the “course of treatment.”
And another story is about his letter-writing:
Vladika’s daily schedule was as follows: In the morning he served Matins, followed by the Hours and Divine Liturgy. After services, if he served in the cathedral, he would stop on the way home in some hospital where he would visit all the Orthodox patients. Arriving home, he would tend to business. In addition to his official duties, he received scores of personal letters to which he would reply himself. (In his three and a half years in San Francisco he received more than ten thousand letters.)
At the top of each letter Vladika always neatly placed a large cross. In folding the letter to place it in an envelope I had to make sure that the cross was not creased or put in sideways or upside down. Vladika did not allow us to lick envelopes shut, and insisted they be opened with a knife. He used to remark with a smile that only Stalin ripped envelopes.
St. John was canonized in San Francisco on July 2 1994.
Gladsome Lights 