3rd Sunday after Pentecost
3rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 21, 15, Gosp. Matt. 6:22-33, Ep. Rom. 5:1-10, Fr. Andrew
Celtic and Other Saints
Glory to Jesus Christ! Today is the third Sunday after Pentecost and once again we are to consider the saints of the Orthodox Church. We have gone from considering all of the tens of thousands of canonized and glorified saints throughout the entire world and all of Church history, to last week considering the handful of our recognized saints here in North America, and now today we look at the thousands of first millennium British and Irish Saints, mostly the Celtic saints; one of the best known of course being our own St. Aidan of Lindisfarne. This 3rd. saint’s day was instituted by the Russian Orthodox Church very recently, in 2007.
It really is an inexhaustible list, Sts. Athanasius, Chrysostom, Basil, Nicolas, about 5 Gregory’s another 10 Mary’s, Seraphim, Prophyrios, Nektarios, more John’s than you can count and tens of thousands of others, then to our North American guys, Sts. Herman, Peter, Tikhon, Innocent, John, Nicolai etc. and today if we were to start listing our Celtic bunch there would be Sts. Aristobulos, Patrick, Brendan, David, Kevin, Columba, Columbanus, Colman, Cuthbert, Bridget, Hilda, Ida, Dymphna, Martyr Kings Edwin, Oswald, Oswin, the 1000 martyrs from Linchfield who suffered under Diocletian, and thousands more.