Message of Fr. Vazken Movsesian, parish priest of St. Andrew Armenian Church, Cupertino, from the Nakhagoch Newsletter. Electronic version archived on: SAIN-- St. Andrew Information Network -------------------------------------- c. 1989 Fr. Vazken Movsesian Address comments to: dervaz@sain.org -------------------------------------- August 1989 My grandmother was a simple woman. After the massacres she fled to Greece, then France and settled in the United States during the mid-1930's. She was forced to leave her home in Sivri-Hisar at the age of 15 along with family and townUs people. At the feast of Assumption in 1915, in a deportation/detention camp she was married. This was a wedding without frills --no bridal party, no wedding gown-- just a priest who recited a few prayers over their heads among the dead and dying. By 1922, the Turks had killed her husband and other family members. In Greece, a young girl, no less a widow, barefoot, child in her lap, another child developing within her, the threat of malaria and disease surrounding her offers this prayer, "O Lord, they have taken everything I had. They took my husband. Now I have this child. I only beg and ask, O Lord, do not take my mind and do not take my faith. Here is my hand, lead me where you will, wherever you want." Until her dying day (in 1985) God was good to her, she would tell me, "I never lost my faith." My grandmother, at a young and tender age went on to become the "mother" of not only her children, but her five siblings and her bedridden mother as well. She was "The Matriarch" of her family. Her role as mother was defined by the circumstances, while the acting-out of that role was defined by her understanding of the Holy Mother of God. My grandmother was a simple woman as was her name, Mary. That name gave her identity. The feast of the Assumption of St. Mary was her day. She would not eat grapes until they were blessed in church at the feast. While growing up, we would celebrate this day with her as we would a birthday. She never would dare to articulate it as thus, but her name and the Saint associated with that name generated her moral character. Saints are models. Saints have been designated by our Church fathers as those whose lives have been exemplary in faith and worthy of imitation. They are honored, not worshipped, by the Church. The models that shape our identity today are many. The values they pass on are sometimes frightening. My grandmother did not have "Rgreat" possessions by today's standards. Yet her faith was something that could not be taken away from her. That faith was her possession. There was nothing complex about it. Psychologist Erik Erikson speaks of "role-confusion" among youth searching for identity. This results when the process of self-definition becomes too difficult, too complex. Clearly, in an age classified as an RAge of AnxietyS with fast paced life styles, with the wealth of information available to people, with aggressive pressure to financially succeed in life, role-confusion in the quest for self definition plagues us today. Further, it is not reserved to adolescence. The Saints, on the other hand, offer us a joyous alternative. In them we have an opportunity to seek, find and grasp identity that is in accord with the life God intends for us. It is a simple life. Sometimes, when we hear or read the stories of our Saints we think of them in an abstract sense, out-of-touch with life today. True, they lived in history, but their lives and the message of those lives transcends history. The examples they set apply to every aspect of our lives. Archbishop Kaloustian writes, "Nothing has exercised a more profound and a more salutary influence upon Armenian womanhood than devotion to and veneration of the Holy Virgin. If Armenian women had higher moral attributes in the East than their sisters in other neighboring nations, it was mostly due to the high esteem that our Church has about this Holy woman, the mother of Christ." The message of St. Mary is a basic and fundamental one: Loving God. That love manifested itself in her obedience to God (Lk. 1:38), her willingness to sacrifice (Lk. 2:33f) and her patience (Lk. 2:51) to name only a few of her attributes. This is a message that each and everyone of us, man or woman, can use as a pattern for living. These attributes are not popular by todayUs standards (perhaps very few would even find them practical), but, as in the case of my grandmother, they make the difference between life and death, between sanity and insanity. Our Church has many Saints. St. Mary is the best known and for that reason her example is a good starting place in our quest for spiritual and self-definition. The feast of the Assumption of the Holy-Mother-of-God, St. Mary is one of the major feasts in the Armenian Church. We will celebrate this feast on August 13, 1989. Come and celebrate this event and pay homage to this Saint that has given us the opportunity to seek and find God's love. Find the joy in the simple life. Find the strength and definition for your life in the examples set by St. Mary and all our Saints. Together let us exclaim: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! -Fr. Vazken Movsesian -------------------------------------- c. 1989 Fr. Vazken Movsesian Address comments to: dervaz@sain.org --------------------------------------