Holy Father Nicholas, pray for us!
The following story was told to me recently during a student synaxis in Thessaloniki. It is a Russian myth that involves St. Nicholas and St. John Cassian (Kassianos in Greek) whose feast day is February 29 (it's moved to the 28th during non-leap years, but for the purposes of this story we're pretending that his feast day only happens once every four years). I stress that this is a myth, because as we should remember the saints do not get jealous of each other. When one is honored all rejoice, because they have the same Lord Who is wonderful in His saints!
St. Kassianos used to have a different feast day. But he was a complainer in heaven. He was complaining to the Lord that not only did St. Nicholas have two feasts each year (December 6 and May 9), but also that he is commemorated every Thursday along with the Apostles. "That's not fair," St. Kassianos was complaining.
One day all the saints had a synaxis (gathering). They were all there, and St. Kassianos started to complain about St. Nicholas again. So this time the Lord decided to answer him. He called Nicholas to come to the front of the room. The other saints started to turn and look around them for St. Nicholas. He was nowhere to be found. Christ started calling, "Nicholas, where are you?" Some of the saints went outside to look for him and couldn't find him. After awhile St. Nicholas came running into the room, out of breath and drenched in sweat. He fell at the Lord's feet: "Forgive me for being late, Lord! People were calling me all night! I was running from this widow to that orphan to the other sailor... I've been all over the world and didn't even sleep last night!"
The Lord raised up St. Nicholas and turned to St. Kassianos and said, "See Kassianos? This is why he is celebrated every week. Because you complained about him we're changing the date of your death to February 29!"
May we have the prayers of both Saint Nicholas and Saint Kassianos!
+ Καὶ τῷ Θεῷ δόξα! +
No comments:
Post a Comment