St Samson the hospitable

Today we are given as a model of holiness and witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ the venerable father, Samson, called the hospitable, priest and physician. Samson is numbered among a few who are ordained priests and physicians, so we ought to make it a point to ask for his intercession as we all face medical concerns personally or with family and friends.

The Church teaches us the place St Samson has among the great Cloud of Witnesses in the Troparion for the Divine Liturgy. We have a clear expectation for our own Christian life in seeing St Samson extolled:

“Patience reaped you your reward, O holy father, for you persevered in constant prayer and devotion. In your great love for the poor and the afflicted, you attended to their needs of body and soul. So now we entreat you in our need, O holy father, Samson, beg Christ, our God, so save our souls.”

Samson is known for his patience, perseverance in troubled times, constant prayer and devotion, care for the poor and weakened of body and soul. Here we see what Christ wants for us and how He (the Lord) wants us to reflect to the world. These virtues of life will lead us to our union with Christ in heaven.

We are convinced that St Samson is given to us today as we face the tragedy of the war in Ukraine. We need his intercession before the Lord.

His biographers speak of St. Samson this way:

Samson was born to a patrician family in Rome in the sixth century, when the city had fallen on hard times. He was a physician, and inspired by his faith in the healing Christ, he devoted all his time, wealth, and skill to others. He turned his estate into a clinic to treat the poor. After he trained a staff to care for the large numbers coming to seek both medical and spiritual attention, Samson left, as a virtual beggar, to make a pilgrimage to Constantinople. His reputation soon followed him, and once again he was busy fighting disease and despair. He was so respected that he was summoned to treat the emperor Justinian. In gratitude for both his medical and spiritual counsel, Justinian endowed him with funds to establish a medical clinic much larger than the one he had left in Rome. Samson worked until his death on this day in 598. (NS)

The Birth of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John

This feast is the story of the fidelity of God, and of his servants. The first reading at Vespers compares the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah were barren until their old age and had lost hope of being able to pass on life to a new generation. But beyond the bounds of all hope, God told Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child, and, indeed, not just any child but the founder of Israel, of the people of God, and of all who believe in his name. Elizabeth and Zechariah also had lost all hope of new life, and for them it was a shame before the people.

Yet the angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah in the holy place and told him that Elizabeth would give birth to a son, and again, not just any son, but the forerunner of the Messiah, who would give life to all by his resurrection. We see the fidelity of God – he will bless us with life, he loves us beyond all limits, beyond our despair, beyond all hopes.

However, these stories also tell us of what it means to be faithful, for Abraham and Sarah, and Zechariah and Elizabeth had to live most of their lives in barrenness and discouragement. God blesses us when we think no blessing is possible.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Holy Prophet Amos

The Holy Prophet Amos is known as the prophet of doom, the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets who lived during the eighth century before Jesus Christ. Amos accurately foretold the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel due to the unfaithfulness of the Israelites. That is, the tribes of Israel were governed by an idol-worshipper and the people joined in that worship of a golden calf (a false god) instead of the One, Living God. Thus, they rejected the God of Israel.

Biographically, little is known about his life and what we known comes from his book in the Bible, the first to be named after a Hebrew prophet.

The faith of the Church is seen in the liturgical hymns of the Divine Liturgy. In the Kontakion, therefore, for today’s Liturgy commemorates the Holy Prophet in this way:

Having purified your heart spiritually, O glorious Prophet Amos, you received the gift of prophecy from on high and proclaimed to all: “This is our God and beside Him there is no other.”

As point of comparison, today Amos is remembered liturgically by the Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox; the Armenians recall his memory on July 31 and the Latin Church has his feast on March 31.

Why is the Holy Prophet important for us today in the 21st century? The prophets remind us, like they did when they lived, to be faithful to the God who made us and continues to give us his gifts. Perhaps Amos’ own words are helpful to answer the question when he delivers God’s message:

“The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and for this I will certainly punish them. They sell into slavery honest people who cannot pay their debts, the poor who cannot repay even the price of a pair of sandals. They trample down the weak and helpless and push the poor out of the way’’ (Amos 2:6).

Holy Prophet Amos, keep us faithful to God and not false gods, pray for us.

Saints Cyril and Methodius

Today is the feast of our Holy Fathers Cyril and Methodius, equals-to-the-Apostles and teachers of the Slavs.

It is thanks to Ss. Cyril and Methodius’ missionary efforts and zeal for the Gospel, they brought the Christian faith in the Slavonic tongue to our ancestors in AD 863.

With the Church we sing:

O Cyril and Methodius, inspired by God,
You became equal to the Apostles by your life.
Since you were teachers of the Slavs,
Intercede with the Master of all
That He may strengthen all Orthodox peoples in the True Faith,
And that He may grant peace to the world
And great mercy to our souls. (Troparion for the feast)

Let us hold in gratitude their memory and pray for their intercession.

Let us pray for the seminary that bears the names of these saints in Pittsburgh.

Holy and Just Job

Today we commemorate the holy and just Job, the Long-Suffering, a man of admirable patience in the land of Uz, who was “simple and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil.” (Job 1:1)

If you are suffering and need a friend in Heaven, the sainted Job is your understanding man of faith, hope, trust and patience. God hears and answers all our prayers. And the sometimes we must accept that sometimes the answer is “no.”

Keep focused on God with Blessed Emilian Kovch

The Ukrainian Patriarch Sviatoslav mentioned in his video message for May 1st the life of Blessed priest-martyr Emilian Kovch. Who is this man referenced?

Blessed Emilian Kovch (1884-1944) was the son of a priest, a married Eastern Catholic priest, and father of six who was persecuted by the Nazi ideologues.

Father Emilian served as a military chaplain (1919-1921). At the time he said, “I know that the soldier on the front line feels better when he sees the doctor and the priest also there . . . You know, lads, that I am consecrated, and a bullet doesn’t take a consecrated man easily.”

As Sviatoslav quotes Blessed Emilian, let these words become our own: “Here I see God, Who is one and the same for all.”

Emilian was centered: he focused himself on the Lord of Life, the God who saves, gives mercy, redeems us from death. The patriarch notes that “He [Blessed Emilian] was able to keep a pure heart, even in the depths of the hell of a Nazi concentration camp. May purity of heart be our strength in these military circumstances so that it might be our guarantee of victory over evil.”

Beatified on 27 June 2001 by St Pope John Paul II at Ukraine. The feast day for Blessed Emilian Kovch is March 25.

Read more of Blessed Emilian here.

Let’s take up Patriarch Sviatoslav’s exhortation to keep centered on God. Focus yourself on the purity of heart. Our strength is being of singular in our attention, our purity of heart.

Pray for Blessed Emilian’s intercession.

Blessed Emilian, pray for us.

#StandWithUrkaine

Prophet Jeremiah

On the Byzantine liturgical calendar today is the feast of the Holy Prophet Jeremiah; as a point of comparison, the Armenian liturgical calendar commemorates Jeremiah on August 27.

Knowledge of sacred Scripture will remind us that the Prophet Jeremiah is one of the major prophets of the Bible. Jeremiah lived in-between the 7th and 6th centuries before Christ—thus making him a contemporary of Solon (the Athenian lawgiver).

We speak of prophets receiving his call from God. In Jeremiah’s case, the prophetic calling happened in a time of promise: the reign of the godly king Josiah, during which a lost book of Moses, known as Deuteronomy, was re-discovered, springing a movement of spiritual renewal awakened among the Hebrew people. But with the king’s death came the people’s despair.

Historians tell us that Jeremiah’s generation experienced radical change in the life of the Chosen Nation: the holy city of Jerusalem is conquered and the people wander in exile. It is Jeremiah who relates to us in the book that bearers his name and fittingly described with the word “Lamentations” and the Jeremiah becomes the “weeping prophet.”

One of the things I found out from Christopher H. Zakian was that Jeremiah’s experience among the Hebrew people had direct correlation in faith and life for the Armenian Christians as St. Gregory of Narek, who borrowed the title “Lamentations” for his own masterpiece of mystical poetry. As Zakian said, “The similarities between the travails of Jeremiah’s time and the experiences of our own people hardly need to be enumerated.

The more important similarity, of course, is the spirit of hope, grounded in a loving, fatherly God, which allows people to endure, overcome, and live on—whether in the 6th century B.C., the 20th century A.D., or today.”

As the witness of Jeremiah gave hope to the Jewish nation he gives a witness of hope for Christians today. Our era of faith is riddled with ecclesial and secular problems not last is war, but we know the truth and we have hope the promises Jesus made are not too good to be true.

St Mark

Happy feast of Saint Mark, evangelist. Blessings for those who are named Mark. Prayers for the Diocese of Venice in Italy.

Here’s our mission: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel. (Mark 16:15)

St Nicholas the wonderworker

Our father among the saints, Nicholas, archbishop of Myra in Lycea, the wonderworker.

There is probably more folklore surrounding St Nicholas than any other saint on the calendar, though actual biographical facts are few. He was bishop in Myra, in what is now Turkey, during the first part of the fourth century. He probably attended the first ecumenical council in Nicea.

Within two centuries of his death, his renown was such that the Emperor Justinian built a church in his honor in Constantinople. In the eleventh century his relics were stolen and taken to Bari in southern Italy, where they remain to this day. A portion, however, was presented to the Greek Church in North America in 1972.

Nicholas was the model pastor: he was a father to orphans and a protector of the oppressed; his openness and generosity to children reflect the gospel image of Christ; and finally his concern for travelers and intervention in the cause of justice are facets of divine love. In the eyes of the Church, every bishop should be an icon of this love. (NS)

Erastus, Olympus, Rodion, and companions –Apostles

On the Byzantine liturgical calendar today we commemorate the holy apostles, Erastus, Olympus, Rodion, and their companions. Remembered as apostles and little heard of unless you are a student of sacred Scripture.

When St Paul wrote his letter to the Romans he was staying in Corinth. Erastus was the treasurer of that city and a supporter of St Paul. Rodion, or Herodion, is greeted by Paul as a compatriot in the same letter. Olympus is another of the saints singled out for a special greeting. He and his companions were the core of the Church in Rome. (NS).

Erastus, Olympus, Rodion, and their companions, pray for us.