Joshua Hornoi

Hello my brothers and sisters in Christ, my name is Joshua Hornoi.

You likely know me as an overly loud & unserious person, but truly, I have been a lonely and melancholy fellow for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would spend many nights crying out to God about my various problems that were likely a lot smaller than they felt to me at the time. I've always known that Jesus Christ is the only one who could ever understand me, but somewhere along the way as a discouraged teen, my Christian faith was something I unknowingly suppressed in hopes of having more 'fun' in life and to stop being so lonely.

I can only describe my life prior to attending St. George as confusion, unfulfillment, and longing. However, the more time I spend immersed in my newfound Orthodox faith, I've begun to realize that this spiritual confusion is a prerequisite that we've all experienced as broken people in a fallen world. However, I didn't understand this at that time. My abandonment of Christ didn't avail anything good in life, in fact, this bitter loneliness only grew stronger. I found myself working to obtain a University degree while having a sobering crisis of meaning, and to be honest, I felt I had nothing to look forward to in life.

I would try hard to fix my life. physically, mentally, through relationships, but this seemed more like treating symptoms for a bigger issue, and not the root cause. I attended a Church that my parents went to, but something wasn't right, and I wasn't aware of what I was missing. The worship music about how Jesus was a friend, and how He is always with us - while 100% true - actually seemed to further my feeling of loneliness instead of helping. Seeing all of these people passionately engaged in music or speaking about their close encounters with God, while I'd idly stir in discomfort, made me feel like an inauthentic Christian. I would skip the Sunday Services and instead opt to volunteer in the kitchen to prepare lunch for the Churchgoers when the service was done. This silent and unimportant act of service was the one thing I did in the Church that I felt pleased God, even if just a little bit.

One day when preparing lunch for the Church, the new Pastor came into the kitchen and introduced himself to everyone. When he came to me, I mentioned how he likely hadn't met me yet - as I was self-admittedly a 'lukewarm' Christian, and infrequently came to the Church and would hide out in the kitchen on the days I would. He was caught off-guard with my honesty and asked to grab coffee. He recommended a book on how different worship styles may resonate with different people, while the book itself did little for me, it's where I first learned about Liturgy. In some way, I credit this man as the one who first helped me find Orthodoxy.

Through my pursuit to find Liturgical worship in today's world, I found out that there was an Ancient Church, with an Ancient form of worship, and it seemed like something I needed to experience. After feeling like a black sheep in a modern Church, I figured a smart move would be to attend the opposite of a modern Church, and maybe I wouldn't feel so out of place. Boy, was I right. I found a Church, a family, a Priest, who intimately know the pain of heart I've felt all my life. I have only been attending St. George for a couple of years now, but the newfound meaning and hope my life has adopted have truly brought me out of the pit. It seems to me that everyone in this Parish is on a shared mission (The Ark of salvation!) to grow in faith, humility, and repentance, in spite of whatever picture our emotions can paint.

The demanding Liturgical cycle, the consistent fasting, the many long prayers, and the communal life within the Church, calls us all to draw deeper. In my experience: Orthodoxy goes beyond what 'feels' right or wrong on an emotional level, and is an ever delicate & slow change in our hearts that we have to cooperate with. To accept God's will no matter what, and to 'run the race' until the very end.

In many regards, I still carry these spiritual burdens of loneliness daily, and with a greater pain of heart than ever felt before. But, all of these afflictions of loneliness and fear are being transfigured into an immense gratitude. I speak for so many of us new converts when I say through the Grace of God I've stumbled upon the fountain of meaning and hope - and while I have so long to go in deepening my faith and in dying to myself, I no longer feel this all-encompassing despair that drew me away from Christ as a teen. I now see my life as an opportunity for repentance and for serving others, and while there won't be a day that goes by where I feel I've done 'good' or 'enough’, I am genuinely optimist for my life’s pursuit of Christ.

I owe so much of this to Fr. Cristian and all of my brothers and sisters in Christ at St. George. I encourage all of us to never give up. As Father reads in St. John Chrysostom's homily each Pascha:

“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave".

Victory in Christ,
Joshua Hornoi