‘Schools of Sts Paisius’

 

To draw a mark of sharp degree

Between Southron and northern Yankee,

The former draws the sight of all

To his casual use of money,

Freely spent on non-productive luxury –

Grand carriages, sculptures, painted pictures –

Loaning to a kinsman down in poverty,

Hosting a grand ball for neighbors near and far.

 

This is the beginning of wisdom,

But its fulfilment lies elsewhere,

In that medieval heritage

The Southerner esteems so highly.

A key foundation stone from that wise old age

Checked sordid worldliness – monasticism –

Yet it was rejected from the start

By Dixie’s gentlemen and ladies.

But without its restraining spirit

Christian society degenerates

Into a squalid pit of passions,

Mired in the passing problems and pleasures

Of the earth.  The monastic life perfects

The chivalric non-acquisitiveness

And asceticism of the South,

And her obedience to authority.

For a monk owns no property,

Stores no cash, partakes of lengthy prayers

And fasts, and meekly heeds his abbot’s words.

His bouts of melancholy idleness

Are undermined by alternating

Work and worship – from field and forest,

Craftroom and kitchen, on to vespers, matins,

And the Divine Liturgy.  Most wonderfully,

The Southron’s greatest treasure, his Sweetest

Lord Jesus, becomes the whole life of the monk

After his tonsure, his mouth and mind and heart

Praying unceasingly, ‘Lord Jesus Christ,

Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

And not a few have been vouchsafed

The vision of the Light of Tabor –

The paradisiacal presence

Of the Lord Himself – with eyes of head and heart.

 

The plantations and smaller Southern farms,

Already agrarian Christian communities,

Yet many still await the crowning gift:  the appearance

Of the God-blessed gardens of monastics.

And being led by the gentle trinity

Of Orthodox abbas – Sts Paisius the Great,

Paisius Velichkovsky,

And Paisius of Mt Athos –

May Dixie bear her last and finest fruits,

An abundance of holy saints,

The most beautiful and enduring

Of all the South’s manifold creations.

***

For a life of St Paisius the Great of Egypt (+417):

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/06/19/101755-venerable-paisius-the-great

For a life of St Paisius Velichkovsky of Neamţ, Romania (+1794):

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/06/19/101755-venerable-paisius-the-great

For a life, and more, regarding St Paisius of Mt Athos (+1994):

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/07/saint-paisios-athonite-resource-page.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!