Tag Archive for: Basil

A Special Elixir made of Basil

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Armodoxy for Today: A Special Elixir

Yesterday, at the Feast of the Holy Cross, a special ceremony known as antastan took place in all Armenian churches worldwide. The word literally means land, as in a piece or patch of land. During the ceremony the four corners of the World – West, East, South, North – were blessed.

A cross is decorated with basil, and processed around the church. The significance of basil was explained in one of last week’s daily messages leading up to the Holy Cross Feast. Today, a small story, from my pastoral experience that I share for your consideration.

It happened during the early days of the first pastorate near San Jose, California. A young man in his late teens was stricken by a mysterious illness that left him in a coma-like state. He could not take anything by mouth. He was being fed intravenously. The doctors were baffled. His parents called me for prayers. I too was young, only recently ordained a priest, and filled with questions. I visited him a few times but wasn’t sure if he even knew that I was in the room. We prayed with his parents.

After two weeks, on the feast of the Holy Cross, blessed the four corners and I took some of the basil home with me. That Sunday, I called my grandmother. She lived in Los Angeles, and I knew that the feast was important in her life. During our conversation, I mentioned the plight of the young man, Armen. Without hesitation she instructed me to boil some water with the blessed basil leaves and take this “tea” to the boy. It would help, she said.

I’m all for science and medicine. I wasn’t really up to taking a homemade concoction into a modern hospital. What he had was still a mystery for the doctors, but, out of my respect and love for my grandmother and her wisdom, I took a thermos of this elixir to the hospital, put it under my coat to avoid embarrassment, I got it into the room.

The parents touched the basil tea to Armen’s lips. If this did not happen in my presence I would not have believed it. He reacted. He moved. They called me the following day and told me he had woken up and drank the tea. A few days later he was up, eating and drinking as normal. They never knew what caused or what the illness was, only that he came through and now, 40+ years later, I remember that episode, especially every Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

As mentioned earlier, I present it here for your consideration and ask that we continue on the mystery of the cross tomorrow.

Basil from the Trash

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Armodoxy for Today: Basil from the Trash

The Feast that we celebrate this coming Sunday is the Exaltation of the Cross. The story behind the Feast has to do with Christian forces liberating the true Cross of Christ in the 7th century, from enemies who had held it captive. This story will be repeated in most Armenian Church, as well as Orthodox Churches, this Sunday. You will also notice basil prominently used during the service.

The association of basil with the Cross of Christ comes to us from the time of Constantine and his acceptance of Christianity, twelve years after Armenia’s conversion in the 4th century. Him mother, Queen Helena went in search of the True Cross of Christ and found in a trash heap. At the foot of the cross there were beautiful purplish-green basil leaves, filling their eyes with beauty and the air with the royal aroma that the plant exudes. Amidst all the debris and filth, there grew this vibrant vegetation, on the spot where the ugliness of hate took our Lord’s life, and His Sacred Blood dripped mixed with the tears of his mother, the Blessed Asdvadzadin. Basil.

Over the past few days, I have shared with you how Christ transforms the Cross from an instrument of torture to a symbol of victory. Everything about the Armenian Cross mirrors the ultimate victory found in the Resurrection of Christ, teaching us that beyond troubles there is a safe haven, beyond evil there is good and after crucifixion there is resurrection. Believe.

Today we pray, an expression from  St. Gregory of Narek, “… the Lord’s cross, a sign of good fortune, glorious and resplendent, unshakable in its exalted light, invincible in the strength on high, standing as an irresistible champion, unmovable forever against the immoral ways of Satan’s tyranny. For the discerning soul, it is a treasure of spiritual goods, showing the defeat of death and the absolution of sin, plus double hopes for each, now and eternally. (Prayer 51)

Translation: Thomas J. Samuelian, Ph.D. St. Gregory of Narek

Basil Tea

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Armodoxy for Today: Basil Tea

One of the customs around the September celebration of the Holy Cross, is to pass out basil to the congregants. The feast is called the “Exaltation” or “Elevation” of the Holy Cross, recounting that the Holy Cross of Jesus was imprisoned by enemies of Christianity. When the Cross was recovered (7th century) it was raised in a procession to proclaim its freedom from captivity. Today, in the Armenian Church, the symbolic procession takes place, where a cross is elevated along with basil. As tradition tells us, when the Cross of Christ was found there was basil growing all around it. Contrary to what has been propagated by popular folk myth, there is no such thing as blessing basil on this feast. The basil merely is placed on the altar, decorating the altar crosses as a connection with the story of its loss and recovery.

The blessing that does take place is a product of the power of the Holy Divine Liturgy. This special mystical power of the Liturgy is not spoken about often enough. During the Holy Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church, prayers are offered, the saints of the Church are remembered and asked to intercede for us, the sacred hymns from early centuries are chanted and sung, and the request of the faithful assembled are voiced or voicelessly heard, and the Holy Spirit is invoked to transform the bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Presence of Jesus Christ Himself is at the Divine Liturgy! And so, in the Presence of Jesus Christ all become blessed and cleansed. Even more, the same Divine Liturgy has been celebrated in the church for years, decades and in some places for centuries. The incense which carries the prayers up to heaven, has been absorbed into the church walls, along with the prayers and hymns. Your parents, your grandparents, your great grands and theirs are all part of this celebration. The small piece of basil sitting on top of the altar, and everything in the Presence of God has now been blessed.

Early on in my ministry when I was serving at a parish in Cupertino, California one of the young men in our church succumbed to an illness which incapacitated him. He was hospitalized and went unconscious. The doctors did not know what to make of it. They administered tests but were confounded. They began feeding him intravenously because he no longer was accepting anything by mouth. His father, a devout and believing man notified me and asked that I pray for his son.

It was the Feast of the Cross and I was speaking to my grandmother on the phone. She was the greatest influence on my life. She lived two doors down from our house while growing up and since taking this pastorate in Cupertino, there were now 400 miles that separated us. But thanks to telephones – yes, landlines with dials – I’d stay in touch and would call her regularly, especially either before or after church services. That Sunday, we spoke and in the conversation I mentioned the plight of this young boy. As I spoke about him, I recalled that his father was from Los Angeles and, in fact, lived in the same neighborhood as my grandmother. I told her who he was and of course, she knew him and his family.

Without hesitation, she told me to take the basil from the Holy Divine Liturgy, boil it in water and take the “Basil Tea” to the boy in the hospital.

I did exactly as she told me. I put Basil Tea in a thermos. It was old-school, with the shiny glass innards and the plaid exterior with a screw-on cup on top. I rushed it to the hospital and kept it concealed under my raincoat. Yes, there was a degree of embarrassment walking into a modern hospital with an ancient remedy prescribed by granny.

At the hospital, we prayed and I gave tea to his father to administer to the boy. The tea was the first liquid (or solid) to enter his mouth in nearly two weeks.

The next morning I received a call. It was his father telling me that his son had come-to. He finished the thermos of tea and was now starting solids. The doctors and medical staff were amazed and dumbfounded.

The basil was definitely blessed, but so was everything else in the church. It is a simple lesson that Jesus teaches us, that life itself is a blessing. The sacred and holy are all around us, only asking us to acknowledge, not with a nod, but by living the blessing.

Let us pray, O Lord, Jesus Christ. You came to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. Each of us, with our baptism through the Holy Font have become members of the Kingdom. Today I pray the prayer of the Holy Apostles, “Increase our faith” so that we may be worthy members of Your Kingdom, to see the Blessings that are around us. Amen.

Cover Photo: Courtesy of Vahe Sargsyan