Have you ever felt a pang of jealousy perhaps at a person that seemed to have it all—had intelligence, good looks, great power in the world, someone who even had a wonderful family life? Well, we’ve probably all been down that world before, wondering: Why does the Lord give things to one person and simply not to me? The Orthodox Church maybe gives us the answer. On August 13 in particular, we celebrate the memory of the great Byzantine Empress Irene.

Irene did seem to have it all. She was the daughter of the Emperor Laszlo of Hungary. She was someone who was raised very piously from an early age. She was very, very intelligent. And when the time for marriage came, the willingly acceded to the idea of marrying the son, John, of the Emperor Alexios Comnenos of Byzantium. As it happened to turn out, Irene and John were a couple whose match was made in heaven. They had eight children, four girls and four boys, and yet Irene longed for an ascetical life, and she did what she could in her own circumstances. She ate very frugally, and it is said that she worshiped God by giving to others. She was constantly collecting money, establishing hospitals and schools and doing all these sorts of things that perhaps would be easy for an empress to do, at least one that had a good will, but in this way she felt that she could at least maintain a semblance of Christian life and struggle, by looking out for other people, by reaching out to other people, and yet denying her own self.

One day, after the famous monastery of Pantokrator was created in Constantinople thanks to her funding, she took the emperor, John, with her into the church, and there she fell on her hands and knees and prayed incessantly to the Lord that her husband, the emperor, would be generous in his funding and that he would give lots of money to these projects that she had in mind. John loved her greatly, and when he saw this, he readily agreed. In fact, there are some icons in Hagia Sophia today that show both Irene and John—John carrying a large bag which is presumably filled with gold that he was going to pledge to his wife for these building projects.

She took the money, and she made a magnificent monastery as well as many other churches and other institutions, and lived the rest of her life in this spirit, always first and foremost a woman of her family, whom she loved dearly; secondly, a woman of the people, whom she loved dearly; and thirdly, but hardly last, felt that by doing these things she was truly worshiping her Lord and Savior. She didn’t live a long, long time, but after her marriage ended through the death of her husband, she took the name Xeni and went to the monastery herself, where she lived out the rest of her days. When her days were up, when her days had completed in the eyes of the Lord, she was very much appreciated by all the people of Constantinople, who had come to know and love her for the many charitable things that she had done.

This truly is a woman who had a beautiful spirit and maintained that spirit her entire life. She certainly did not cast aside the gifts that God had given her through her high birth and through her monetary wealth, but she never thought for one instant that these things had any importance outside of the helping of her people and the prospering of her nation and especially in her ability to worship her Lord and Savior.

Many times today we see people in similar circumstances who are not living like that, but this is not what the Lord intended, and through his gift to us in the Empress Irene, down through the ages, and proclaiming her memory every August 13 that we do, we, too, can see that everything that we obtain, no matter how small or how large, is a gift from our heavenly Father and should be used in the same way that the Empress St. Irene taught us.