Living with the saints, living out the saints

  • 0705elizabeth-detail.jpg“Well, what do you know? Today is the feast day for St. Eliz­a­beth the Grand-Duchess.”

    That’s more or less the inter­nal remark when I was going onto the OCA site to check out some­thing else and found that out. Saint Eliz­a­beth was a saint I didn’t know much about until sev­eral years ago. But now I feel like I know her some­how, and in that feel­ing I real­ize there’s an answer to some­thing a new con­vert named Gail asked me about recently: How do you relate to your patron saint?

    You could ask that ques­tion of all the saints, but of course it’s most impor­tant to relate to your patron saint. Gail came into the Ortho­dox Church only a year ago and has the same patron saint as I do, St. Mary of Egypt. Sim­i­lar to my expe­ri­ence in pick­ing that saint, Gail isn’t really sure why she felt led to choose Mary. The story is com­pelling, to be sure — it may be one of the longest and most com­plete hagiogra­phies for any of the early saints (HERE, if any­one doesn’t know it). But I still don’t really know why before I had even fin­ished hear­ing her story for the first time, I knew my search for a patron saint was over.

    How is it that that con­nec­tion hap­pens? I’m shak­ing my head as I write this. (No, really. It’s pretty silly, and I’m glad no one is in the room.) There’s some­thing there that defies ratio­nal explanation.

    But how you cul­ti­vate the rela­tion­ship is a lit­tle less mys­te­ri­ous, I think. You remem­ber them. And — here comes the tough stuff for us con­verts — you ask them to remem­ber you. Maybe this doesn’t hap­pen in big, dra­matic ways. But as you look at their icon on your altar, you start to find that some inter­ces­sions you have seem to belong to them some­how. For obvi­ous rea­sons, I pray to Mary when my pod­vig(*) – my spiritual/ascetic strug­gle — seems a lost cause. And in even turn­ing my thoughts that way, I begin to find relief.

    I added a short prayer into my rule of prayer, so that I could address her every day. Between the hymn to the Theotokos and the clos­ing por­tion addressed to Christ, I say, “Mother Mary of Egypt, blessed saint well pleas­ing unto God, pray for me.” And as short as it is, I remem­ber her a lit­tle bit every day. (BTW, it’s eas­ily adapted to any saint, so if any­one wants to bor­row, feel free.)

    0705elizabeth-newmartyr0001.jpgAnd then there’s the way they start to just get into your life. That’s where my rela­tion­ship with St. Eliz­a­beth comes in. Her story is inspir­ing: Sis­ter to Cza­rina Alexan­dra, a pious woman who gave up palace life to begin good works and was ulti­mately killed by the Com­mu­nists — a worth­while read HERE. But her story didn’t move me — she did. Before we were housed our new church build­ing, we held many ser­vices in the rec­tory, and when I was up at the chanter’s stand doing my part, a large icon of St. Eliz­a­beth was always next to me in her dis­tinc­tive white nun’s habit. She was really too close for com­fort, and I used to feel like I was being watched a lit­tle too closely. Did the icon have to be quite that big? Did it have to be inches away in our cramped lit­tle chanter’s area? I thought she was being rather rude, actually.

    But you just can’t be in that prox­im­ity through all those ser­vices (some of which seemed down­right har­row­ing, since I was a very raw recruit as a chanter) and not start to feel some con­nec­tion. I was watch­ing the movie ‘Russ­ian Ark’ recently — which is enough of an expe­ri­ence to be worth a blog post all its own — and for a brief cameo, there she was. The movie weaves Russ­ian his­tory into a dra­matic visit through the Her­mitage museum, and at one point when Cza­rina Alexan­dra is walk­ing through a hall­way, a woman in a white nun’s habit joins her and tries to com­fort her. That moment of recog­ni­tion made me real­ize that I felt a con­nec­tion to St. Eliz­a­beth, and I don’t know when it hap­pened. At church the next day, I was happy to find her icon in its new place. It was like find­ing a friend who you’ve shared some good times and bad times with.

    So there it is — the tes­ti­mony of one con­vert who tries to work these things out. How do you relate to your saint? You do your part, and they do theirs.


    Related posts:

    1. No foolin’
    2. St. Mary of Egypt
    3. Read­ing the lives of the saints
    4. St. Mary of Egypt Sun­day ’09
    5. 9/11, Kat­rina and St. Euphrosynos

    July 5th, 2009 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • DebD 07.05.2009

    I have to admit that I strug­gling with relat­ing to my patron saint. I picked her because it was my name not because I felt any affin­ity towards her. It doesn’t help that I have a very ugly icon of her. It has been hard to find an alter­na­tive. How­ever, I have a spe­cial bond with Blessed Mon­ica (mother of Augus­tine). But, like you said, it is hard to explain such things.

  • Anam Cara

    It’s funny. When I was chris­mated, my priest thought I would pick an Eliz­a­beth, since that is my given name (although it is Ger­man and there­fore Elis­a­beth just like the Grand-duchess spelled her name before it was Anglicised).

    But I really wanted to be Pho­tini. I admired (and still do) her strength to stand up to Nero, the way she brought all her chil­dren to the Lord and they were mar­tyred with her!

    I had read about St. Eliz­a­beth the Grand-dutchess — a huge book — before I became Ortho­dox. The book spoke to me in many ways and con­firmed to me that I was mak­ing the right choice in con­vert­ing. She was Ger­man, I am Ger­man dese­cent. I had been to Mar­burg many times, although I knew it because of HER patron saint Elis­a­beth who worked with the sick and dying. She con­verted from Lutheranism. I had been born and bap­tized in the Lutheran Church. But I just couldn’t see myself min­is­ter­ing to the sick the way both of these Elis­a­beths did. On the other hand, I could see myself open­ing my big mouth and get­ting into “trou­ble” that way. So I picked Photini.

    And although we talk and I pray to her with my daily prayers (Pray to God for me, O holy Pho­tini, for with fer­vor I flee to thee ho art the speedy helper and inter­ces­sor of my soul), there is some­thing in me that cries out to St. Eliz­a­beth. I ask both for intecession.

    And I won­der if, in my first act as an Ortho­dox, I defied my spir­i­tual father by ask­ing for Pho­tini when I should have always had Elis­a­beth and am only now learn­ing the consequences.

    I adore my icon of St. Pho­tini, but am not wild about St. Eliz­a­beth. I am drawn to St. Eliz­a­beth in spite of rather than because of the icon I have.

  • Fr. John McCuen

    When I was bap­tized, the priest who was my spir­i­tual father at that time named me, “John,” in honor of St. John of Kro­n­stadt. After a time, I sum­moned up the courage to ask, “Why did you name me for him?” He answered, “I hon­estly don’t know. That wasn’t the name I was going to give you when you got into the font, but that’s the name that came to me as I bap­tized you.” St. John of Kro­n­stadt is a won­der­ful saint, but I can’t imag­ine a saint whose life is more dif­fer­ent from mine. That’s my fault, of course. As a priest, his exam­ple is cer­tainly one worth striv­ing to emulate.

  • Grace

    Anam Cara:
    What a great story! There are other saints that I have felt a kin­ship for. Too bad it’s not like col­lege where you can major in one sub­ject and minor in oth­ers. Then I could major in St. Mary of Egypt and minor is St. Xenia, St. Seraphim of Sarov, etc. etc.

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