For a time, my wife and I were volunteers for Literacy Volunteers of America. I love books, and I can’t imagine a life without them. And yet, we know that most people don’t read books, and many in our nation cannot read at all. My wife and I decided to do our small part to change this - I had a student for one year and my wife had one for three years. My wife’s student was a man in his late 20s who had two small children. His primary goal for coming to literacy classes was to learn to read books to his children.
When he finally (after eighteen months of very hard work) mastered Go Dog Go, and was confident enough to read it at home with his children curled up on his lap, it was the most moving achievement of his life. I still get teary-eyed when I remember his face as he told us about it.
I always think about this on September 15th, the feast day of St. Nicetas the Goth. He had been the disciple of the man who invented an alphabet for his people, and had been given charge of preaching the gospel to the Goths using this alphbet, and the scriptures that could with it be written and studied. St. Nicetas was martyred for the success of his efforts by a pagan ruler, but not before many of his countrymen had come to know salvation in God through Jesus our Lord. And learned to read as well. In a way, then, St. Nicetas is the literacy saint.
Literacy Volunteers is a great organization, and if you’re reading this now you have the skills necessary to help. But even if you don’t teach someone to read, you help make the world a brighter place by reading yourself. What a great era we live in! There are so many great Orthodox books written (or translated) every year - get one of them! Put it on your pillow and read a few words each night before going to sleep. What a rich treasury you will find therein!
St. Nicetas the Martyr, pray to God for us!
+Fr David Smith
