Our Venerable Father Theodore the Sanctified, Disciple of Saint Pachomius; Blessed Hieromartyrs Severian Baranyk, Yakym Senkivskyi, Vitalii Bairak.
Acts 20:7-12; John 14:10-21.
Read Acts 20:7-12
Brothers and sisters, I know I’ve heard some snores from the parishioners hearing my homilies, but no one has ever fallen from a height to their death during my preaching!
In our short epistle reading today we see Paul revive a young boy who nods off while listening to a midnight homily and falls three stories. It’s interesting to note that Paul heals the boy in a similar fashion that prophets from the Old Testament did before him: by laying upon. Both Elias and Elisha resuscitated youths in the same fashion.
In commenting on this passage, St. John Chrysostom encourages us to struggle to make ourselves available to hearing the life-saving preaching of the gospel with our whole hearts:
So great was his desire to listen! Let us be ashamed, we who would not do this even during the day. But it was Paul who spoke then, you say. What do you mean? Paul speaks now as well, or rather, it was not Paul either then or now, but Christ, and no one listens. There is no window now, and neither hunger nor sleep troubles us, and still we do not listen. No crowding in a tight place or any other similar discomforts. And the wonderful thing is this: though a young man, he was not indifferent, and though he was being overtaken by sleep, he did not leave, nor was he afraid of the danger of falling. Do not be amazed that [Eutychus] nodded off and fell. For it was not out of indifference that he fell asleep but from necessity of nature. But notice, if you please, that so fervent was their zeal that they were even on the third floor. For not yet did they have a church. – Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 43.7