Association “Let`s Live Together” celebrated their Saint Vasilije Ostroški Day
For all it was a solemn and joyful moment
In the morning hours on the feast day of Saint Vasilije Ostroški on May 12, 2018, several members of the Charity section of the Faith Stewardship Charity, on the invitation of Mr. Dejan Kozić, the Director of the Association for the Support of People with Developmental Disorders “Let’s Live Together”, headed for the celebration to their small estate “Oasis” in the village Golubinci.
Cooperation and friendship of the FSC and the Association started with the late proto-presbyter stavrophor Ljubodrag Petrović back in 1997, who had a great understanding for their needs, and this friendship on our mutual joy lasts all these years.
In order to arrive on time, before a priest come to pray and cut the cake for saint`s day, the volunteers and the members of the Charity section hurried to be on the Holy Liturgy in some place nearby Golubinci.
The first church we encountered was a church in the village Popinci dedicated to the Holy Archangel Gabriel. When we entered the Church a little before nine o`clock, the priest was in the altar and at that moment only one person was in the Church.
After the priest finished the Morning Prayer, we kissed the Cross and the Gospel Book and the young priest asked us, “Do you want to help me serve the Liturgy”? We responded with trembling because we had never before been singing on our own the responses on the Holy Service.
Although unskillfully, but from the heart, one sister had more hearing, we responded on the liturgy. This was a new experience and responsibility for us, because we were direct, living participants in the worship service with our prayerful response on the prayers that priest brought to the God.
Father Milan Glavašević held a short and warm sermon about St. Vasilije Ostroški. He was obviously very joyful for serving the Holy Liturgy on this great saint`s day.
He said that he himself wondered how he would serve the liturgy on this saint`s day. He served the morning and then our group arrived, exactly when the Holy Liturgy was to begin. We understood that this was not a coincidence, and that in this case we see that God and His Saints even impossible make possible.
Full of joy for this event and the Holy Liturgy, we introduced Father Milan with the activities of the FSC, invited him to visit the FSC, and he wanted the guests from the FSC to come to village Popinci and to introduce his parishioners with the FSC and the volunteer work of its members.
A small estate with three residential facilities “Oasis” is a “Life and Work Community for People with Disabilities” where they have the conditions to take care of themselves with the help of volunteers and to manufacture and make some income.
In the yard “Oasis” there was already a lot of people when we arrived. Mr. Dejan Kozić who kindly met us, was greeted by Vasilije Kovčević, who led the Charity Section and congratulated on the behalf of the FSC the saint`s day and gave him a cross made of shells and three prayer books and a wall church calendar for each of the three community housing facilities in the “Oasis“.
Among those people gathered in the shade under the cherry tree, there were retired priests proto-presbyter-stavrophor Živan Lacković from Lipolista and proto-presbyter-stavrophor Danilo Stegnjaić and Slobodan Topalović painter from Lipolista.
Priest Živan is an old friend of the Association “Let`s Live Together“. He has been with them for many years and led them on excursions. He told us: “We organized a holy trip to Ostrog to kneel down to St. Vasilije Ostroški. “
They did not have their own saint day and I suggested them: when St. Vasilije helps everyone, the whole world, he will help you if you pray to him and praise him. They accepted to celebrate St. Vasilije and I come every year. I wish this becomes tradition and that my grandson Jovan, who beside his grandfather, started to love priest profession continues it when he grows up.
The Lord said, “Whoever does this one of my little brothers, he has done to me”. They are the angels of God, without sin, without envy, without the desire for money and for glory. And now we have become like one family.
They come to our saint`s day celebration in Lipolist for the Dormition of the Mother of God. I am there when something is needed. I came with our Sloba, a painter Slobodan Topalović who will do one mural to refresh this ambience.
“Socializing and conversation followed by the sounds of the accordion and folk songs until the moment when a young priest Milorad Bojčić who succeeded priest Danilo in the parish arrived.
The guests and hosts quickly gathered in prayer in front of the patron saint`s candle, the bread and the wheat with clean hearts, in their own way together with the parents and those who care about them and help them, to celebrate of their patron Saint Vasilije Ostroski.
After cutting the bread, the priests reviled the water, blessed the attendants, and then crucified with holy water the rooms of the Oasis. For all it was a solemn and joyful moment.
Members of the Association who are staying in “Oasis” are in charge of certain tasks including preparing meals, arranging yards and gardening. We took the opportunity to show us their hands products, what they really enjoyed.
They showed us a greenhouse with vegetables and spicy herbs and lays with strawberry plantings. Production is organic, free from pesticides. Strawberries have arrived; they are very good and tasty. They pick and sell them themselves.
