Pilgrimage to San Francisco
Our Pilgrimage to San Francisco
By Justin Miller
“I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the House of the Lord…” Psalm 122:1
These words reflect what happened with me and my family over the last week. Several weeks ago, my good friend and Kum, Steve Milak, whom many of you know, emailed me with the intention to invite himself to come to stay with us for a few days and make a pilgrimage to San Francisco to pray and ask the intercessions of St. Vladika John for the safe and healthy delivery of his second child which is due very soon. I was thrilled about this as Anne and I have not found time enough to make the trip in the 6 months or so since we’ve been but an hour’s drive to this holy place.
So I cooked up a pilgrimage for him. He arrived on Friday night, June 22. Saturday morning we got up early and said morning prayers from the Jordanville Prayer Book. Then at regular intervals throughout the morning we read many of the prayers and canons prescribed by this comprehensive prayer book in preparation for Holy Communion. This book prescribes 3 canons (to Christ, the Theotokos, and the Guardian Angel), the Akathist to the Theotokos, and then a lengthy Order of Preparation for Holy Communion including psalm readings, a canon and 10 prayers before holy communion. I have never attempted to do all of this, but I thought that as long as we have a special visitor for the purpose of making a pilgrimage we might as well try it.
So we did all this in our living room, while Anne joined us as she was able. At 2 PM, we were joined by my friend George Pattas and we departed for the Golden Gate City. Our first stop was a nice little hole-in-the-wall Orthodox bookstore, called Archangel Bookstore. Then we went to 6210 Geary Blvd. the Joy of All Who Sorrow cathedral.
When we got there, they had started a moleben to St. John. This takes place every Saturday before the vigil and anyone can submit names and intentions for prayer. Then everyone present venerated the holy relics of our patron Saint. For those of you that have not been there, let me describe what you see. St. John lies in an ornate wooden reliquary, dressed in some kind of vestments and a mitre. A cloth covers his face, the same cloth that is used to cover the Holy Gifts in the Liturgy. He is completely covered except for his hands and ankles. These are exposed and one can see how his body has not decayed in the 40 years since his repose. Not to say that his skin looks like a living person either. It is dark, shrunken and cracked, but not decayed. It should be bones.
This is quite astonishing for us in the US, but in fact it becomes quite common as you look around the world. Common and yet more astonishing. In case it is not enough for someone to see a man 40 years lifeless yet not reduced to dry bones, consider a man some 1600 years dead and yet his body remains in tact and even his shoes have to be replaced in the casket because they get worn out. This is what I have heard of St. Spyridon on the island of Corfu in Greece. (See this LINK)
So it is truly a manifestation of Grace to see this man whose life was so plainly holy, and now even in death God does not abandon his body to decay. It can serve as a reminder that one day each person that ever lived will be reunited to HIS own body. Not just a new body that will be made at that time, but the body that he had in his life. First of all his bones, which for most people are probably still in tact some where, but somehow God will reconstitute our bodies as they were when we left them, meaning as they are now for those of us reading this. This is what we believe.
Some of us will take this reconstituted body into the blessed life of the Kingdom of God and some of us will take it into … an eternal life of pain and suffering. A dreadful thought that should provoke us to action. And we should focus on the blessed life that we desire. Let’s desire to hear from the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your Lord.” Matthew 25:21
So after the moleben, the vigil started. It was about 3 hours long: vespers, matins, and first hour. And it was all in Russian, so it’s hard to understand and follow. But one trades understanding in that sense, for a kind of beauty and grandeur little found elsewhere. It’s a different experience with its own place in our spiritual life. I get this sense that I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go. My passport, so to speak, says that I am Orthodox, and yet there is a lot I don’t understand and there is also this whole world of Orthodoxy going on without me, with out me knowing about it or even having access to because of the language barrier. And yet these people are working out their salvation just the same. It is an eye opening experience for me.
There are also a lot of things going on there that you don’t see much in our English speaking churches: molebens, a special place for lighting candles for those departed, lighting of candles all over the church, buying of candles in the back, the acquisition and use of holy oil from St. John’s lampada, confession going on in the corners during the services. All these things are very fundamental parts of our Orthodox life, and understood as part of the lives of these Russian people, but still very foreign to me personally. I’m just not sure what to do with all these pieces of paper and what about those tiny loaves of bread and how about all these different sized candles? I still don’t get it all. I can make my own guesses, but I shouldn’t need to. But it will take an effort on my part to cross the language gap to try to get some answers, to lay aside my pride which gets angry at having been isolated from these church practices, and simply ask and participate as I feel moved by growing knowledge and inspiration.
During the vigil Steve, Anne, and I all confessed to one of the priests. Since it is a large cathedral with several priests and deacons, during the services they can usually spare a priest or two to hear confessions.
The next day, Steve, Anne, Nectaria, and I drove back to the cathedral for the Divine Liturgy. It was a hierarchical Liturgy with Archbishop Kiril of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Church. We all received the Holy Eucharist from the hand of the bishop himself.
After the Liturgy we browsed the cathedral’s bookstore where we met a Russian couple we had seen before at St. Anthony’s monastery and at a church in San Jose. After talking a while we discovered that they live rather close to us on the East side of San Jose. It was a very nice discovery.
Having left the cathedral, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to a rest area just north of the bridge. There we ate lunch and admired the view of the San Francisco Bay. It was a rather beautiful day, as most days are out here. I am somewhat surprised that they even bother to have a weather segment of the news hours, because the weather is almost always the same here. There may be some slight variations in temperature, but during the summer, it seems, it’s always dry, clear, sunny, and either hot or not so hot. It’s hard to believe, but it’s not going to rain here again until about November or so. This is inconceivable for a Hoosier like me. But the reality is that we live in a heavily irrigated desert.
Having eaten lunch we drove up to a place called Muir Beach. It’s just an ocean front with a sand beach and characteristic California coast craggily rocks that are great for climbing! Finally we hiked up a big hill to overlook the sea and the city from quite a vista. I can definitely tell why men go to sea and why so many people want to live in California.
From there we headed home and that evening we watched a very interesting Russian film called Ostrov (meaning The Island), which Steve had brought with him. It is about a modern day fool for Christ, fictitious but authentic. I highly recommend it.
So that is the wrap up of our fine little pilgrimage. It made for a busy weekend, but very joyful. It was the beginning of a very busy week that included a wonderful visit by the St. Innocent Academy and another trip to the SF cathedral for the glorious feast day of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. This time we went with our new friends Alexey and Olga. I would be most eager to duplicate this simple pilgrimage for anyone who wanted to come here to venerate the incorrupt relics of our blessed patron.
Glory to God for all things! Glory to Him, Who is wondrous in is saints!
Freely Ye Have Received Freely Give