A few months ago, I finally completed reading St John of Kronstadt by IK Sursky. It didn’t take me long. It was very well written, and better written than the previous Orthodox book I had purchased. To purchase it I used some birthday money that a friend kindly gifted me. If you’ve been closely following my instagram posts and stories, you’d know I have no lack of reverence for St John. He’s my absolute favourite Russian saint. I believe everyone should read his extraordinary life. His life story was one of the first few saint stories I read in comprehensive detail when I first began to become a more avid and serious spiritual reader a decade ago, and I was enamored by his life for months.
Who was St John? The aforementioned book claims, “Yes, Father John was undoubtedly the most significant phenomenon not only in the Russian Church, but in the entire Orthodox church, the most significant phenomenon in all the Slavic lands, and in all Christianity in our time”. Read the last line again. That’s not something I’ve read in many saint books!
It is said that no other saint has so much written about him as does St John, that by his holy prayers and holy faith he had resurrected from the dead three people, and that he performed more miracles than any other saints, except for St Nicholas of Myra. Additionally, so large were the numbers coming to St John for confession, that for practical purposes, he had to re-institute mass public confessions. And so many more praises of his deeds have been uttered.
St John was also a teacher of religion at the Kronstadt high school. (The circumstances as to how he began to work there is actually quite hilarious). In IK Sursky’s book, the author stipulates many accounts of how he changed children’s lives whilst “teaching” them religion. Hence I write here some ways we can learn to become a better sunday school servant by learning from his example. Mind you, some or all of these tips are probably very challenging and a bit way too above our levels. But let’s learn and grow from his zeal and love, little by little, according to our feeble efforts.
Some of these lessons are general tips for personal spiritual growth, and are seemingly unrelated to service, yet it is this life of spiritual integrity/wholeness that will allow us to emit grace to those we are entrusted with. In fact, it’s the only way as it’s written “Be holy before making others holy” and “A good example is better than a 1000 sermons”
St John of Kronstadt brings homeless children to the shelter
True love should radiate from every faculty of our bodies and souls
We ought to have kindness, gentleness and affection in our faces, voices, smiles, touch and word choice. I mean, if there is anything that communicates meaning from our existence, it must be tinged with love.
“…. Father John entered the classroom. The extraordinary expression of kindness on his face and his affectionate smile immediately disposed everyone towards him. Many of us left our places and went up to him for a blessing, kissing his hand with a feeling of joy….. “
“Batiushka blessed each one of us and affectionately stroked our heads and cheeks. Even now, it as though I can feel his affectionate hand and hear his voice and remember his deep blue eyes which penetrated right into one’s soul”
However, in our sinful and overly sexualised times, we should approach physical contact with children/students with great discernment and great caution. It must be calibrated according to the specific child, their age and their gender – and there should probably be a general healthy cautiousness with it most of the time. Here are some suggestions:
> In some cases, it may be completely inappropriate, most likely if one is serving an older child of the opposite gender. (In my church, for most of high school, servants only serve classes of their same gender anyway, so that’s not much of an issue)
> For some children, they are not accustomed to any touching at all, feeling very uncomfortable from it, and only taking it well from those those servants whom they feel close to and whom they trust. For such cases, one ought to build that connection and relationship first. Maybe such kids experienced a negative physical touch once, or were actually physically harmed by someone in the past.
> In the aforementioned case, it may also be that the child simply hasn’t even learnt how to use touch in a relationship and has never gotten accustomed to it. Hence it’s not necessarily a trust issue thing, but rather a lack of practice, tolerance and social awkwardness thing.
> For younger kids, touch is more important to connect to them
Physical touch in its essence, should always complement emotional connection with the child, and not be a large aspect of it. It shouldn’t be overkill or overdone. It’s usually more safer to follow a “short, sweet and effective” approach. If we need, we should seek guidance from an older, wiser servant or a priest on this topic.
Additionally, it’s important to remember, that our touch has to always be gentle. For gentleness is divine energy. No one can truly be gentle without the Holy Spirit. A recipient of a miracle by Mother Erene stipulates, that apart from the obvious miraculous healing from her illness, she could never forget and was “touched” in heart as well, as to how so very gently Mother Erene touched her (can’t remember where she was touched) before she was cured.
A warm and attentive gaze towards each individual
This continues the previous point. Additionally, they say the eyes don’t lie, that it provides an insight into one’s soul and heart. I think there is truth to that. You can also tell if one has pain in their lives, by looking in their eyes. How important it is to have Christian, loving eyes, saturated best of all, by a grace-filled smile. IK Sursky writes, “With an attentive gaze he glanced at each of us. At that time this glance both warmed and caressed us.” It is through the eyes of St John himself, that many felt his clairvoyance too, his penetration into and reading of their souls.
Teach from a passionate love for Christ
We ought to have a personal love and deep connection with Christ and the bible. The book says, “Even more memorable were the lessons in religion in the second class, when we studied the New Testament. In explaining the life of Christ the Saviour, His commandments and His miracles, Father John would be completely filled with spiritual exuberance.
With an inspired gaze, He would look at us, his words would bring us to compunction and touch us ineffably, and would warm us with warmth with which the soul was filled. Burning faith, which breathed in each of his words, and the vibrant enthusiasm of his narration was transmitted to us. And the life of the Saviour, His sermons, and dealings with the people seemed as though they had not happened not so long ago.
Tears filled Batiushka’s eyes when he told about the Saviour’s sufferings on the Cross. Sorrow would pierce our hearts. We sat trembling and completely silent. When we studied this and were told about it, as children we experienced it deeply, and this remained with us for the rest of our lives.”
Again, we read…. One of Father John’s students tells us: “You should have seen with what liveliness, with what comprehensibility and clarity Father John related to us his knowledge of Christian doctrine. His kind face stands so clearly before my eyes, with his bright, loving gaze which was directed towards us. And for the rest of our life the impression of this gaze and this love will not be wiped away from our memory.” (p. 77)
St John spoke from heart-felt passion – the same thing many recruiters seek typically as one of the top criteria from a prospective employee. The man was ALIVE IN CHRIST. He wasn’t a spiritually lifeless, boring, information dumping person. He didn’t teach mechanically, eloquently, academically or intellectually, but spiritually.
How can St John narrate scripture like this and teach about Christ in this way? Of course, it’s through his sincere and consistent relationship with God. St John genuinely felt love for God in his heart, and burned to love Him more and more. He was always dissatisfied by his current spiritual labours, he was always vigilant and self-critical of himself….. He loved God first and foremost, not to teach others, but for himself first. Christ was the number one person in his heart!
He himself said of his love for scriptures, “I especially love to read the sacred Scriptures of both Testaments. I cannot live without this reading. How much is contained here! How many laws of the life of man’s soul are revealed! How much instruction a person who is striving for spiritual renewal is able to draw forth here in order to be reborn from an evil person to one that is good“
Teach from a life of fatigue in obeying Christ’s commandments
A student relates ….. “Sometimes Batuishka came to class tired; obviously his night had been without sleep because of prayer or visiting the sick. At such times he was quiet, would listen to the answers while struggling with his growing drowsiness. We would become still. “Batiushka is tired; he probably prayed all night,” we would whisper to each other.
“Batiushka, I’ve finished,” the one answering would say. Father John would raise his tired eyes to him, bend over to him, stroke him on the head, praise him and make a mark in his record book. (p. 69 – 70) …. “And often in class we saw Batiushka very exhausted” (p. 71)
St John thought of God and tried to fulfil His commandments every minute of each day. Difficult! Insanely difficult! We can never do that, but it’s good to be aware of people who did strive to be like that.
We learn from this also, that to love children and others, we don’t always need to have full energy or to feel fully well. And at such times we don’t need to speak much. One can still show up to service, and be of value, even without using many words, even when we are tired or feeling somewhat sick or emotionally or mentally exhausted.
Words are often cheap anyway, and can be easily replicated. But the love that shows in one’s body and soul, from true grace that dwells in one’s heart, is inimitable and unfakeable. In this way, we teach from God’s grace, and not from our own strength and our own graceless energy …. for “God’s strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Even one may tell their kids genuinely from their heart (well, all things we say should generally stem from the heart and be as truthful as possible), “I am tired. I am not feeling well, but I love Sunday School and being around you guys and hence I’ve decided to come anyway” and this can soften the kid’s hearts. This is not necessarily complaining (as it’s uttered in a joyful and positive attitude, without a tinge of bitterness), but could be that you care and love the kids so much that you are able to tell them frankly about how you feel at the moment…. you trust them enough to share with them this information from your soul.
Moreover, this openness and transparency for them will teach them to be emotionally transparent to their friends and family – instead of bottling up their emotions, pains and troubles, and joys, and becoming depressed and overwhelmed – and to show them how to we need to be transparent in confession to a priest, not concealing anything from our souls.
Go to church often, pay attention carefully there, and pray from the heart!
It is written that he taught his students, “Stand reverently in church and pay attention to everything that is being read and chanted there. It is difficult, but one has to. Go to church more often, children! Pray with all your heart. Prayer is living water – with it the soul quenches her thirst.” We ought to do this, firstly for the sanctification of our soul, secondly to impart grace and holiness to the Sunday School kids.
Be compassionate to the kids when learning is slow (either from their genuine failure or from misbehavior) and be willing to repeat lessons as long as it takes
I won’t reproduce the account of the story in full as it is long. But the story goes, that the students of his class once did not prepare for their lessons, which was on the divine services, Greek and Latin. They also found these lessons really difficult. All the kids were deeply petrified to disappoint Fr John by not knowing the current content.
Upon entering the class, Fr John asked questions, but no one could answer…. Then signalling out a child to answer, the child broke down in tears as he didn’t know the material well enough. So what happened? Fr John himself broke down in tears… “Batiushka tried to wipe away his own tears without being noticed, but then openly took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He had experienced our grief together with us.” (p. 73)
Taking upon their pains, Fr John said, “Well, all right, we’ll repeat the lesson next time!” and “the burden had fallen from our shoulders, and we breathed freely and everyone was happy” (p. 73).
Don’t punish, ridicule, shame, nor be excessively strict. Reformation happens by the persistent love and warmth of the teacher and their counselling of the student. To get angry or impatient, is totally the flaw and poor spirituality of the servant
“To rouse the students to zeal, Father John made no use of punishment or ridicule, but rather, he made use of a warm, heartfelt relation to the matter at hand, and to the students. Father John did not give “D’s”, did not deride anyone in exams, but would hold conversations, and these conversations would be deeply imprinted in the memories of the students for life.
There were instances when the teacher’s council of the high school, having lost all hope for the correction of a certain pupil, would sentence him to expulsion. Then Father John would appear before the superiors as his defender and beg them not to subject the unfortunate one to such a harsh punishment, and assumed the responsibility for his correction. He always succeeded in inclining the council to the benefit of the guilty party, and then himself took to correcting him, counselling him, and guiding him on the right path. A few years would go by, and from a youth who had seemed beyond hope, was formed a useful member of society.”
Teach not only the bible, but also the saints’ lives! (Apart from other Orthodox practices stemming from Tradition)
The book narrates “Batiushka set aside the second half of his lessons for the reading of the lives of the Saints or the Bible. These readings interested and occupied us so much that we usually asked to take these books home. A boy would carefully insert such a booklet into his satchel, and in the evening, after he had learned his lessons, would gather those at home and read it aloud to them. “Batiushka, I read through the life of holy martyr Paraskeve,” he would say in a day or two, “now give me another booklet”…… we found pleasure in reading these booklets in which everything was related so simply and with such faith!”
It’s amazing! We learn so much from here about the lives of the saints:
> St John made them read either the bible or the saints. Both held great importance in St John’s eyes, not just the bible.
> Children could actually be hungry to hear about the saints! They may actually WANT to read more of them! (Although…. I’m not sure how hungry children in our times would be to hear of the saints …. but the human soul is the same no matter the era – we all have an inward hunger for righteousness)
> If given solid material of the saints’ lives, the children might even read them at home of their own accord!
> That our lessons ought to be simple just as the booklets were simple. For our holy Christianity is not a fun merry-go-round of mental intellectualising and solely knowledge of theology, but it’s a way of life, which can be described with simple language and vocabulary. If you don’t believe me, check out the writings of St Theophan the Recluse, especially this.
The Art of Orthodoxy 