A Vigil Beside Someone Who Will Never Do This Again
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Mother Gabrielia (1897-1992)
Gerontissa Gabrielia (1897-1992), also known as Gavrilia, was a 20th century saintly Greek Orthodox nun.
Contents
- one Life
- two Special Relationships
- iii From the Sayings of the Gerontissa
- 3.one Assorted short sayings
- iii.2 Conversations
- 3.2.1 Take Faith
- three.2.2 Languages
- 3.iii Thanksgiving
- three.4 Holy Communion
- iii.5 Monastic Society
- 4 Sources and external links
Life
The Gerontissa Gabrielia (Gavrielia) was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) on October 15, 1897 to Helias and Victoria Papayannis. She was the youngest of iv children.
She grew upwards in the city until her family moved to Thessalonika in 1923. She went to England in 1938 and stayed in that location throughout the Second World State of war. She trained as a chiropodist and physiotherapist. Every bit a consequence of her services to her fellow citizens during and after the war, she was honored by the English government with the offer of citizenship, an honor she politely declined.
In 1945 she returned to Greece where she worked with the Friends Refugee Mission and the American Subcontract School in Thessalonika in early post-war years. Afterwards she opened her ain therapy part in Athens until 1954. In March of that yr, her mother died and the role was closed. Sister Gabrielia left Greece and traveled overland to India where she worked with the poorest of the poor, even the lepers, for five years. She worked with Baba Amte and his family who built and organised hamlet-communities for the lepers of Republic of india. She accepted no reward for her services, trusting always in God's providence.
In 1959, she went to the Monastery of Sts Mary and Martha in Bethany, Palestine, to become a nun. When she arrived she asked Fr. Theodosius the chaplain for a rule of prayer. Fr. Theodosius was somewhat surprised to find that she could read liturgical Greek. Fr. Theodosius said, "The nifty elders that we hear about no longer exist. I certainly am not one. You came here to save your soul. If I start giving you rules, you volition lose your soul and I will besides. But here is Fr. John. He volition exist your elder." And so for her offset twelvemonth in the monastery he set her to reading only the Gospels and St. John Climacus. (It should exist noted that at that time 'The Ladder' had not been published in Modern Greek.)
She stayed in Bethany for iii years. In April, 1962, word came that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople sought to send an Orthodox monastic to Taize in France. Sister Gabrielia went past way of Taize (she spoke fluent French from babyhood) to America.
By 1963 she had returned to Hellenic republic. She was tonsured to the Small Schema by Abbot Amphilochios (Makris) on Patmos in the Cave of St. Anthony nether the Monastery of the Announcement just before she and the nun Tomasina left again for India. Elder Amphilochios was enthusiastic near the idea of a nun who would be open to the active outreach in the world. Once in Bharat she spent iii years in Nani Tal in Uttar Pradesh where Fr. Lazarus (Moore) was the priest and where he consulted the Gerontissa in his translations of the Psalter and the Fathers. Between 1967 and 1977 she traveled in the mission field of East Africa, in Europe, including visiting old friends and spiritual fathers Lev Gillet and Sophrony of Essex. She returned over again to America, and briefly to Sinai where Archbishop Damianos was attempting to reintroduce women's monasticism.
She traveled extensively, with much business and broad dear for the people of God. Some of her spiritual children constitute her in Jerusalem beside the Tomb of Christ; others found her on the mission field of East Africa. In the 50s and 60s she was a spiritual guide and comfort to thousands of people all over the world. She would pray for all of them by name in her daily rule of prayer.
For years, offset in about 1977, she lived hidden in a little apartment, the "House of the Angels" in Patissia in the midst of the racket and smog and confusion of central Athens. This modest apartment was a identify of refuge for all of those who would visit her seeking a word of comfort.
In 1989 she moved to Holy Protection Hermitage on the island of Aegina, close to the shrine of St. Nectarios. There, she called the last ii of her spiritual children to go monastics near her, and there she continued to receive many visitors. At the commencement of Great Lent in 1990 she was hospitalized for lymphatic cancer. She spent xl days in the infirmary, leaving during Holy Week and receiving Holy Communion on Pascha. To the anaesthesia of her doctors, further tests revealed the cancer had miraculously disappeared.
The Gerontissa finally withdrew to solitude. With merely ane nun as a companion, she moved for the terminal time in her life, to the isle of Leros. There they established the hesychastarion of the Holy Archangels. But in this last yr of her life did she accept the Bully Schema at the easily of Fr. Dionysius from Little St. Anne's Skete on Mount Athos. He came to requite her the Schema in the Chapel of the Panagia in the Kastro on the top of Leros.
Gerontissa Gabrielia passed from this earth on March 28, 1992, having never built a monastery. Over the years, six of her spiritual children did get monastics, just never more than 1 or 2 were with her at a time. Simply the angels could count the number of lives that God touched and changed through her. Her biography and collected writings were published in Greek in 1996, through the piece of work of her terminal monastic daughter and the contribution of many, many others who held the Gerontissa dear.
Anyone who knew the Gerontissa realized that God has not left united states without His saints, fifty-fifty down to the present mean solar day. The few words recorded hither scarcely propose the clarity and beloved of her soul. Words are only the tools of this world; the wonder of the Gerontissa was wrapped in the mystery of the silence of the world to come.
She never sought a reputation. She never immune annihilation virtually her to be published during her long life and only allowed her children to accept photographs in her very last years. Those whom God touched through her called her Gerontissa; she never made herself anything but the nun Gabrielia.
She was humility and beloved incarnate.
Special Relationships
- Elder Amphilochios (Makris) - tonsured her into the Bully Schema, on the island of Patmos in the "Cave of St. Anthony", belong to the Monastery of the Evangelismos, before she and some other nun Tomasina left for India.
From the Sayings of the Gerontissa
Assorted short sayings
1. Every place may get the identify of the Resurrection. It is enough that you alive the humility of Christ.
2. As for sleep, keeping acuity is enough.
3. There are people who are vigilant about some things, and there are people who are vigilant well-nigh all things.
4. Not a cognition that yous learn, just a cognition that y'all suffer. That is Orthodox spirituality.
five. Exercise non desire many things--more than you lot have, that which is far abroad. Rather, seek to accept care of what you take then as to sanctify information technology.
6. Ane affair is education: that we learn how to love God.
seven. Nothing is cheaper than coin.
8. Better hell here than in the other world.
ix. It is non that which nosotros say, but that which nosotros alive. It is not what we do, but what we are.
ten. I put on the raso (the monastic habit), and I don't say anything unless asked. The raso speaks.
11. If you have love for the whole world the whole world is beautiful.
12. Someone said that the Christian is i who purifies love and sanctifies activity.
13. Nosotros desire our freedom. Why? In order to be slaves to our passions.
14. Briefing: When adept-for-nothing people get together and determine that cypher can be done.
xv. The aim is that even when nosotros have the parasite in the head . . . we have the Paraclete in the heart.
sixteen. We go a replication of heaven with "May Your volition be done on world equally in heaven."
17. One who loves does not notice, just as one does not notice that he breathes.
18. When the doors of Heaven are open, so the doors on earth are also open.
19. When the mind (nous) is not scattered in worldly things and is united to God, then the "Skillful day" that we say becomes a blessing.
xx. Every rejection and negativity destroys our piece of work.
21. We must not be earlier every image and likeness of the Other.
22. In the beginning of our life we have need of the presence of another to love or befriend. As nosotros progress, the One--God--fills us with such love and His joy that nobody at all is needed. All of this longing for another the soul does in the beginning because it notwithstanding doesn't know Whom information technology loves and therefore thinks it needs a certain person.
23. God oft does not desire the deed but the intention. It is plenty that He sees you lot are willing to practice His command.
24. Jesus Christ gave the aureate rule: lonely and with the other.
25. When God created the states, He gave u.s. life and breathed His Spirit into united states of america. That Spirit is Love. When we lack honey, nosotros become corpses and are altogether dead.
26. The Christian must respect the mystery of the existence of everyone and everything.
27. To attain nonexistence, honey, dear, and beloved—and then place completely with the Other, with every other. Then at the end of the day you enquire yourself, "Do I want anything? No. Do I demand anything? No. Exercise I lack anything? No." That's it!
28. The spiritually advanced person is the 1 who arrives at a place of no identity and who has understood in his depths that whatever happens is the will of God or by the permission of God.
29. Merely when the person stops reading otherbooks except the Gospel does he begin to make existent interior progress. Only then, united with God through the Prayer, can he hear the will of God.
30. Never desire annihilation only the will of God, and receive with beloved the evil that comes to you.
31. Practice not respond to a person with the evil he brings you, just see Christ in his heart.
32. Never say, "Why has this happened to me?" Or when you see someone with gangrene or cancer or blindness, don't enquire, "Why did this happen to them?" Only enquire God to give you the vision of the other bank of the river. Then you volition see with the angels as information technology is in fact: Everything is according to the plan of God. Everything!
34. If nosotros want to exist good monastics, we must at every moment remember of God before monasticism. Otherwise we will not become practiced monastics.
36. Our most vulnerable spot is found in many words and discussions.
38. When you take thought of critcism . . . judging others, ask God to take hold of you at that hour then that you tin love that person equally He loves. And then God will help you come across your condition. If Christ were visible, could yous criticize?
42 What we say remains to eternity.
43 Only when you are perfected in Dear can you arrive at dispassion.
48. When needed, God will send someone to us. Nosotros are all fellow travelers.
49. The language of God is silence.
fifty. Whoever lives in the past is as if dead. Whoever lives in the hereafter in his fantasy (or imagination) is naive, because the time to come belongs but to God. The Joy of Christ is found just in the present, in the Eternal Present of God.
59. Ameliorate to say the Jesus Prayer aloud than not at all.
66. Worry is for those who practise not have Faith.
67. Anxiety and worry is for those who don't accept faith.
68. Dear is only on the Cross.
68. Love is just plant on the Cantankerous.
69. Relationship is difficult when "I" stands above "You".
70. As God loves you, then does He beloved your enemy.
71. Do you want to pray? Set up to answer God secretly.
74. We should arrange to live in the world like the oil and the water in a vigil lamp, which exercise not mix and thus are in and for God. In the world, but not of the globe.
75. Nosotros are all containers; sometimes of the Light, sometimes of the Night.
fourscore. Just when we are "yet"...not busy-bodies...busy-bodying...caught up in many activities... do we give the angels an opportunity to do something.
81. You practice what you should, and God will do what He should.
93. How beautiful is the Mystery of Tommorrow!
95. The Lord said: "Whoever wants something, assertive he will receive. It is enough that the request is in understanding with the Commandments of God, that is with Love.
100. If y'all knew that you are non Here, then you would be There.
101. In social club for miracles to occur, it is plenty that we love. Neither prayer nor komboskini has such power.
102. My experience teaches me that nobody can help anyone, no matter how much they wish to of they dearest. Assistance comes only from God when it is His time.
103. When we accept God always in mind, and so God has us e'er in heed. (When we think always of God, God thinks e'er of us.)
105. We are but useful when nosotros practise non exist for ourselves, and the contrary.
106. We must non brand decisions for others. Leave them to the Angels and they will detect the best solution.
107. Never forget that you are His.
108. Like Symeon of Cyrene we must be gear up to run to the assist of our fellowman.
109. If you seek assistance from someone who is busy, he will do it for yous, not the indolent and the lazy.
110. Woe to me if I do not love.
111. Three things are needful. First Honey, 2nd Dearest, Tertiary Love.
112. The fasting of a diet is so easy when one wants to slim. And and so difficult is the Wednesday and Friday fast when the Church wants it.
113. In the Church we should always sit in the same place, for the Angels.
114. After the Liturgy, we should sit down in the Church building so long as nosotros can, for the Angels
115. When we are talking and someone interrupts us, we should non continue. It ways that he should not hear that which we would have said. The Angels practise thus.
116. He who does non desire to see anybody is not human.
117. Nowhere are we 'forever'. (Nosotros are never anyplace "forever".)
118. Whatever happens to united states of america is simply our ain fault.
119. Every morning time, on the new page we open, nosotros sign the blank. Whatever God wills, let Him write. (Every morning open a new folio and put your signature on the blank. Any God wants, let Him write.)
120. When we pray we should lock our door.
125. If you practice non reach the signal of despair, you will never see the Lite.
136. Be still and know...There is no greater school than this kind of stillness of the mind.
137. The merely true joy is freedom from worry.
150. Christ said to u.s.a.: Go and make disciples of all nations. And we - hushing up - what exercise nosotros exercise?
179. The nigh powerful prayer is the Epiclesis of the Divine Liturgy.
183. Love is a bomb the destroys all evil.
192. The other day a lady asked me what would happen with the 'toll booths' afterward death. I said to her, " I will tell them the Light of Christ shines to All! You yet are in darkness and I don't see y'all!"
194. The greatest part of my prayer here and for years now is Thankgiving. What else should I inquire, when I accept everything?
199. God put the sense in the head. Why? Do yous know? And so that we can non see ourselves. Yeah! So that we encounter just the other and dear but the other. And then that nosotros see ourselves but in the eyes of the Other.
243. Some want to go to the Resurrection without passing by fashion of Golgotha.
244. Because the Christians could not put in do the Gospel while living in the world, they fled. That'south how they became the kickoff monastics.
259. Every person is 'sent'.
267. Our soul is a Divine Breath. Our torso is His Creation. In the whole of us we are the icon of God.
290. Day and night let u.s. anoint God for the gifts He gives us.
291. Few words, much love. To all. No matter who they are.
Conversations
Have Faith
But one matter do I know that I accept always, and it is not pride, nor fantasy, but that which I accept day and nighttime, wherever I find myself--iii things: first, Faith; 2nd, Organized religion; third, Organized religion. That'due south all! Aught else can I say to you. Information technology has directed all my life. When nosotros believe and someone says, "Do y'all want to come up to Lebanon with me?" I say, "Aye."
"How practice yous say Yep to everything?"
I say yep because I believe that if it is not for my good God volition brand information technology so that the No will come from the very one who invited me. Some paper volition non exist set up, or something will happen.
Today I am 90 years old--may you alive and so long! I read once again and once again and again in the Gospels, and I run into something strange. Jesus Christ comes and says to the Apostles, "Get out now what yous have and follow Me."
Now, if they said, "And who are you? Why should we lose what nosotros have? Why should we lose our profit? Where will you lot have united states? What will yous do with usa?"—if they had said that, what would have happened? They would take remained in darkness.
They said Yes to some Unknown who came and said, "Throw all that away!" Why? Because they believed in God, and they waited for the I who would say to them, "Come up!" And that was the beginning.
Because if nosotros say No, what will happen? . . . One or the other: If you believe, you lot will walk on the water similar St. Peter. If you lot are scared--Bloop! Nil else.
Through all my life it has been like that. They called me to the strangest and most distant identify in India. One night they sent me a message: "Come and see someone who is sick." We started out in an ox cart driven by some shepherd boy. And every bit we were going upwards the mountain in the forest, what do I see in a higher place united states? Two eyes shining, a tiger. What do y'all say then? "Lord accept mercy on me, and may Your volition be done on globe as it is in heaven."
Then I closed my eyes and saw that written within me. Because He said to the states, "Why exercise you lot worry? Why do you lot worry? Fifty-fifty the hairs of your caput are numbered!" Why worry? Organized religion is defective. May nosotros have organized religion.
Languages
In one case when I was there where I was, some foreign missionary came and said to me, "You may be a good adult female, but you're not a practiced Christian."
I said, "Why?"
"Because y'all have been here so long and you simply become about speaking English. What local languages have yous learned?"
I said to him, "I haven't managed to larn whatsoever of the local languages, considering I travel a corking deal from place to place. Every bit soon as I learn ane dialect, they start speaking another. I've only learned 'Good morning time' and 'Good evening.' Nothing else."
"Bah, you're no Christian. How can you evangelize? All the Catholics and Protestants larn all the local dialects in order to . . ."
Then I said, "Lord, give me an answer for him." I asked it with all my middle, and and then I said, "Ah. I forgot to tell you. I know five languages."
"Actually? What are these v?"
"The beginning is the smile; the second is tears. The third is to touch. The quaternary is prayer, and the fifth is love. With these five languages I go all around the world."
And then he stopped and said, "Just a minute. Say that again so I can write information technology downwards."
With these v languages you can travel the whole earth, and all the world is yours. Love everyone every bit your own--without business organization for religion or race, without business for anything.
Everywhere are people of God. You never know if the i yous run across today might tomorrow be a saint.
388. Come permit us be silent.
Thanksgiving
When in truth nosotros appreciate the gifts which God gives us, we don't take time to seek anything else. We run to say give thanks you. Thanks, thanks, thank you. We meet a person ... give thanks y'all. We encounter a blossom ... thank you. We run across a glass of milk ... thanks. For everything ... thank you. And such a joy comes into our life, that many do not understand even if they are close to u.s.a.; What is all this! They said to me one time in England: "What'due south happening? Why are you lot so cheerful?" "Considering I am alive and I see you!" Take a skilful day!
- — Holy Protection, Aegina, 1989
Holy Communion
It's not for us to decide when nosotros should or should non receive communion. It is not easy to see ourselves clearly, especially on our disordered side. For that in that location must be the Spiritual Guide. In that location must be Sacred Confession which volition draw out of u.s.a. whatever should non exist in us.
- —Leros, January 1, 1991
Monastic Social club
The Lord said to His disciples: "Shortly you lot will all scatter and leave me lone, simply I am not alone because My Begetter is always with me". The same with us, if nosotros think about it. We are never alone. Equally soon as we turn to Him in a glance of our mind, nosotros'll discover ourselves in the advisable status toward Him first, and and then toward our fellowman. That is, if we want something, some enlightenment, immediately we run to the Gospel. (Certainly at the time when there is no suitable person.), that is my start. In the Gospel is Eternal Life, that is, Himself. God gave us our conscience: His Gospel. In this conscience we ever find an answer. . . . Another thing that helps a great deal, as we know, is frequent prayer. It's non something that should be in words, neither in thought. The Prayer is not something we exercise: information technology is a condition of soul. And wherever you find yourself, whatever you are doing, in whatever circle you are, your soul can be found in the condition of Prayer. For the soul is from God. Next, when information technology is helped with prayer and the Jesus Prayer to be united with the Holy Name, then it continues, whatever yous do.
Sources and external links
- The Austere of Love, the consummate life and sayings of Gerontissa Gabrielia, published past toperivoli.gr
- Gerontissa Gavrielia from the website of St. Gregory Palamas Monastery
- Gerontissa (Elderberry) Gabrielia and some of her sayings
- The Ascetic of Love: Sayings (Apophthegmata)
- "Female parent Gavrilia (1897-1992): 'a Holocaust to His Dearest'" by John Brady; published in In Communion, the journal of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship
- Orthodox Poetry Of Gerondissa (Abbess) Xeni Of Aegina, Hellenic republic (1867-1923) - Compiled by Father Demetrios Serfes, Boise, Idaho, USA
Source: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Gabrielia_(Papayannis)
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