Usually on Sundays, I turn to the south, and go to my parish in Atlanta.  Today, we turned north, and went to Asheville, where we visited the Carpatho-Russian mission there, Sts. Joseph and Andrew.  It was a neat visit.  Liturgy was great, and the people were truly wonderful.  Father John Zboyovski is the priest, and he and Pani Cindy were very gracious and welcoming.

The highly unusual thing about the mission in Asheville is that they are fortunate enough to have the resources to actually build a church, starting sometime later this year.  And what a church!  Father and some others made a trip to Constantinople, and studied the architecture of some of the oldest churches in existence.  The new church is designed to have the same look and feel as those churches, right down to authentic building materials.  It should be absolutely beautiful.  And to top it off, Metropolitan Nicholas and the Ecumenical Patriarch have plans to build a women’s monastery on the site.  The Metropolitan mentioned last month that the Patriarchate will send three nuns from Greece to seed the monastery, as it were.  The new church itself is exciting, but to see Orthodox monasticism grow yet again, and so close to home, is even more important.

But enough of trivialities.  Today was what one priest told me, tongue firmly planted in cheek, is the holiest day of the year, Mother’s Day.  That accounts for all those corsaged and behatted ladies hither and yon.  My own mother is reposed unfortunately.  In her absence, my sister and I agree that raising me was certainly a challenge, one not within the powers of ordinary humans.  I say it was because I was preternaturally bright and enormously sweet.  My sister, for reasons that mystify me, says it was because I’m an ogre.  Well…I never!  If I wasn’t so sweet, I’m sure I would have something to say, sister dear, who had a birthday this past Friday and was how old?  Bwaahahahahahah!

Someday I will rule the world.

But in the meantime, I thought it a nice coincidence that today on Mother’s Day we also commemorate St. Emilia.  Talk about Mother of the Year!  As a child, she wished to become a monastic, but ended up in an arranged marriage.  It took surprisingly well, so well that five of her nine children are now recognized as saints by the Church:  St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyassa, St. Peter of Sebaste, St. Macrina and St. Theosevia.  After her husband died, Emilia founded a convent and retired there with her daughter Macrina.  They didn’t have to take her to dinner to let her know she had done well!  So to all the Emilies out there, Happy Name Day.  Never forget how great your namesake is.