Category: Saints and Blesseds

Pray for the Beatification of Andrey Sheptytsky

Today is the 75th anniversary of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (+Nov. 1, 1944).

Prayer for the Beatification of the Servant of God Metropolitan Andrey

Our Lord Jesus Christ – You always reward Your faithful servants, not only with special gifts of Your love, but also with the eternal reward of the saints in heaven, and in many cases You grant them the recognition of sanctity by Your Church here on earth.

We humbly pray: grant that Your faithful servant Metropolitan Andrey be numbered among the saints. Throughout his just life, “full of suffering and trials,” he was a good shepherd for his flock and a great labourer for Christian unity. And through his beatification and intercession, grant our entire people the great gift of unity and love. Amen.

Молитва за Прославу Слуги Божого Митрополита Андрея

Господи Ісусе Христе – Ти завжди нагороджуєш Твоїх вірних слуг не тільки особливішими дарами Своєї любови, але й вічною нагородою святих у небі, а в многих випадках і прославою на Твоїх святих престолах, тут на землі.

Покірно благаємо Тебе: зволь так прославити Твого вірного слугу Митрополита Андрея. Він упродовж свого праведного життя, „повного терпінь і досвідів”, був добрим пастирем свого стада і великим подвижником церковної єдности. А через його прославу і заступництво пошли і цілому народові нашому великий дар єдности і любови. Амінь.

Blessed Theodore Romzha

Today, the Church commemorates, “The holy priest-martyr Theodore Romzha. Born in Veliky Bychkiv in Carpatho-Russia in 1911, he came from a poor family and exhibited a vocation to the priesthood. Sent to Rome for studies, he was ordained in 1937 and sent to the country parish of Berzovo. In 1939, he was called to the seminary at Uzhhorod and taught there until 1944. In 1944, despite his youth, he was ordained bishop for the Mukachevo Eparchy. During the Soviet Army’s occupation of Carpatho-Russia, he was tireless in his care for his flock and in his defense of the rights of the Byzantine Catholic Church.

On October 27, 1947, he was severely wounded in a staged accident. He was taken to the hospital in Mukachevo, where he was subsequently poisoned, and died (1947).”

Romzha died just after midnight (Moscow time) on November 1st; a request made of or Congregation for Oriental Churches the feast day was changed to October 31.

Bishop Romzha was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II on 27 June 2001.

Icon and text by the monks of Mt Tabor.

Blessed Roman Lysko

Today, on the liturgical calendar the UGCC Church liturgically remembers Blessed Roman Lysko who died on this date following torture and starvation in 1949. He was born on 14 August 1914 in the Horodok, Lviv District, Ukraine.

Father Roman was a married priest and pastor. He was ordained priest by Metropolitan Sheptytsky. The NKVD called Father Roman cray for signing the Psalms aloud in prison.

Pope St. John Paul II recognized that Father Roman died as a martyr, and beatified him on 27 June 2001.

Blessed Roman Lysko, pray for us.

St Moses the Prophet

Today we celebrate St Moses the Prophet, according to tradition was born a Jew in Egypt at a time when the Jewish population was enslaved to the Egyptians. Moses was abandoned by his mother only to be adopted by the Egyptian royal family. Eventually Moses was called by God to be a leader to the Jewish people, interceding for them before Pharaoh, demanding their liberation, “Let my people go!” What followed is one of the earliest recorded campaigns of mass unarmed resistance in history. Trusting not in force of arms, but in the Lord, the Jewish people prayed, and God delivered them. They won their freedom, but it was not given easily. They marched out of Egypt in search of a promised land, but Pharaoh and his army followed, only to be once again routed by the work of God.

Moses then became the great lawgiver and one of the earliest monotheists, carrying down the commandments from the Lord’s mountain: Do not worship other gods. Do not lie. Do not kill. These words, and the example of liberation on which they are borne have forever changed society.

(Hagiography: In Communion)

The Passion of St John the Baptist

The Church recalls the event of St. John the Baptist’s death today. The following meditation helps give perspective.

Today is the memorial of the Passion of John the Baptist, who was killed by the corrupt King Herod for condemning the monarch’s illicit marriage (Mk 6:17-29). For John, this was the culmination of a life of sanctity announced by an angel even before his conception (Lk 1:11-17). This divine decree presents a curious paradox. God, being all-powerful, was able to determine the course of John’s life before his birth (ST I q. 23, a. 6), but at the same time, God respected John’s free will (ST II-I q. 6, a. 4, ob. 1). How is it that God can determine what we will freely choose?

Modern thinking often seems to suppose that freedom of the will means that our choices have no cause other than the will, as if the will depends on nothing. Thomas explains instead that the will is free because it proceeds from an interior principle, namely knowledge, that allows us to act for an end which we know (ST II-I q. 6, a. 1, 4). God did not ‘force’ John the Baptist to give up his life; rather, by his grace he enlightened John the Baptist so that he would understand the good of preaching the truth even when it endangered him. As a rather crude analogy, consider how a parent can teach a child to make good choices, not by compulsion, but by education. Keep in mind also that some knowledge is abstract, as when a smoker who is trying to quit knows that his habit is bad for him, but rationalizes that away each time he smokes. John’s knowledge was entirely practical; he knew clearly that in his situation the only thing worth doing was to tell the truth. He saw clearly the disappointment inherent in every other course, and so he was free to act for the sake of the truth.

Furthermore, there is never competition between divine and human causality. Two human agents can operate on the same level, when for example two men pull on a rope. In that case, we can ask who pulls harder, and if the men are pulling in opposite directions, maybe the rope will not move at all. But God operates on a completely different level. He is the one who created humans and ropes and set all things in motion. As another crude analogy, if I write with a pencil, both I and the pencil are equally truly causes of the writing, but in very different ways. Even though I am “in charge,” I do not force the pencil to do anything unnatural. God has even more causal power, because he created pencil-materials in the first place. In the same way, God created John the Baptist as the kind of person who would give up his life for the sake of the truth. God is the first cause on which all else depends. Nothing escapes his causal power, not even the interior life of John (ST I q. 19, a. 6, ad. 3).

You might have noticed that, left to our own devices, there are actually significant limits on our freedom. Those who struggle with sin or addiction will know well the painful cycle of repeatedly making a bad choice. If only for the briefest moment, we convince ourselves that just one more can’t hurt, and so the will continually inclines toward damaging action, misapprehended for the moment as a good. Our choices are rather dependent on our own fallen selves, and so we will not always be able to avoid deceiving ourselves and making poor choices. True freedom, then, can only be found outside ourselves, in grace given freely by God that can break us out of our own self-imposed prison. It is by such grace that John’s interior movements were so perfected that he was able to freely give his life. It is only by such divine grace, and not by some creative act of the will, that we can truly draw closer to God.

Br. Raymond La Grange, O.P.
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Angelic protection

Prayer of St. John Chrysostom
to Guardian Angels for Spiritual Protection

Lord, stretch out Your mighty hand and Your sublime and holy arm, and in Your watchful care look down upon me, Your creature, and send down upon me a peaceful angel, a mighty angel, a guardian of soul and body, who will rebuke and drive away every evil and unclean demon from me. For You alone are Lord, Most High, almighty and blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.

Holy Prophet Micah

Micah prophesied between 750 and 687 bc. He was a contemporary of Amos and Isaiah.

Micah’s words were an indictment against the rich, the avaricious money lenders, swindling merchants, families divided by rivalry, and all petty tyrants and bureaucrats, whether dressed as judges or rulers, priests or prophets. They were the very antithesis of the divine ideal he preached, namely, “to deal justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with God.”

Failure to do these things, Micah warned, will bring punishment. He specified the destruction of Samaria and the fall of Jerusalem, but he also held out a hope for the faithful remnant. He described the birth of a peaceful king who will pasture the flock of the Lord. Micah foretold that this event would take place in Bethlehem of Ephratah, which was known as “the least of the clans of Judah.” (NS)

Blessed Ioan Bălan

August 4th is the feast of Blessed Ioan Bălan: Romanian Greek-Catholic priest, Protopope of Bucharest, Rector of Blaj’s Theological Academy, Eparch of Lugoj, and martyr of the Communist persecutions—who died on this day in 1959, after over a decade of imprisonment without trial.

Blessed Ioan Bălan, pray for us.

Ss. Boris and Gleb

Today is the memorial of the holy protomartyrs of Kievan-Rus’, Boris and Gleb, known in baptism named Roman and David.

When the first Christian prince of the Kievan-Rus’ people, St Vladimir, died in 1015, his eldest son, Svyatopolk, attempted to consolidate his own position by eliminating his two half-brothers, Boris and Gleb. When Boris heard of his brother’s plans, he refused to defend himself and faced his death without fear or hatred. His younger brother also accepted his assassination without opposition.

Such murders were typical of the extremes of political struggle for power in a pagan society. Boris and Gleb sincerely believed that the good news of Christ, so recently preached in their own land, must change all of this. Thus, by their voluntary sacrifice to their brother’s lust for power, they bore witness to the command of Christ to love one another. The impact of their witness deeply affected the character of the Kievan-Rus’ spirituality.

Meditation by the New Skete Monks
Edited by PAZ

St Mary Magadalen

“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher).” (Jn 20: 11-16)

 I have written several reflections on this passage, throughout the past few years. Today I’m reflecting on it again, because it is the NC-feast of St. Mary Magdalene, who was to be recognized by the Church as “Equal-to-the-Apostles.” On that Sunday morning two millennia ago, she was not “with” the Apostles, but stood alone, “weeping outside the tomb.” And by all indications, she felt very much alone, as if she were the only one who had suffered the loss of “her” beloved Teacher. They have taken away “my” Lord, she says, – not “our” Lord. And she’s trying to get to the bottom of this, on her own: Tell me where you have laid him, she says, and “I” will take him away. I love that! She was going to carry the Body of Christ away, somehow, …perhaps on her back, I don’t know. It’s interesting that she hadn’t thought of appealing to the Apostles, the eleven able-bodied men who might have helped out with this task. There was apparently a disconnect between the “Equal-to-the-Apostles,” Mary, and the Apostles. And when the risen Lord reveals Himself to her (as quoted above), He does not reproach her for this “disconnect,” but does nudge her to “connect,” by sending her off to tell His “brethren,” the Apostles, of her encounter with Him (Jn 20: 17).

My point? Even while we experience certain ups and downs in our “personal” relationship with the Lord, in the Apostolic Church we need not go through these alone. In communion with Christ, we are called to “connection,” or “communion,” also with the rest of His “brethren.” By reaching out for the help of others, when we need it, we also help them, to see the risen Lord at work amongst us, in the “communion of the saints.” St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, pray to God for us!

Meditation by Sister Vassa