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.