St John Chrysostom

The second Sunday of Great Lent is known as the Sunday of the Paralytic.   On this day the Gospel reading is from St Mark (2:1-12) telling of Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man. This particular Sunday our parish held a “Reader Service” since our priest was out of town.  Monk Paul read the Gospel and followed it with a homily by St John Chrysostom on this particular passage. Several times in the homily he refers to the words of St Paul.  This made me think of something I heard and saw on Mt Athos concerning St John.  While at Vatopedi Monastery we were able to venerate a relic of St John, his skull with his left ear intact and incorrupt.  The relic was in a ornate silver box that had a door on the side that opened revealing the ear.  Having already seen the incorrupt hand of St John elsewhere this was an added “mind-blower”! 

Fr Mathew, the monk that showed us around Vatopedi, told us the story behind the “incorrupt ear”. 
The story goes:

  St. Proculus (the spirtual son of the saint and eventually Patriarch of Constantinople) was going to visit St John and entered the room where the saint was working and saw a man standing close at his side appearing to be talking in his ear.  Not wanting to interrupt, St Proculus left and returned sometime later and mentioned to St John that he had come by earlier and found him busy with a visitor.  St John exclaimed that he had no visitors that day and that he had been occupied in writing the entire time.

Incorrupt Hand of St John Fr Mathew told us that legend has it that St Paul would whisper in the saint’s ear as he was composing his many homilies.  What in effect St Proculus had seen in this tale is St Paul himself whispering in the ear of St John! The incorrupt ear is due to it being the ear St John would listen to the God inspired wisdom of the great saint with. 

God Is Glorious In His Saints!

More about St John Chrysostom
Read about the Orthodox view of saints
St John’s Marvelous Paschal Homily read every Pascha (Easter)

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