Tag: Christianity

The crisis-ridden Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India has set a deadline to solve its decades-old liturgy dispute.

The church based in southern Kerala state has asked all defiant priests in the Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese to follow the synod-approved (or “uniform”) Mass, in which the celebrant faces the altar during the Eucharist, on or before July 4 or face expulsion.

The church’s head, Major Archbishop Raphael Thattil, and Bishop Bosco Puthur, the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator, set the deadline in a joint pastoral letter issued June 9.

The church leaders also asked that the circular be read in all parishes June 16. Except for the archdiocese, which also is the seat of power of the Syro-Malabar Church, all 34 dioceses of the Catholic Church in India and abroad have implemented the synod-approved Mass.

Syro-Malabar Catholics in India, especially in the church’s primary Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly, have been embroiled in a controversy for more than two decades over the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy, which they call the Holy Qurbana.

After years of debate about tradition, Latinization and modernization, in 1999 the synod of bishops of the Syro-Malabar church issued uniform rubrics for the celebration to end a situation in which some priests faced the altar during the entire liturgy, while others faced the congregation throughout the liturgy. The bishops’ decision was to have the priest face the altar during the Eucharistic prayer but face the congregation during the Liturgy of the Word and again after Communion.

Priests in most Syro-Malabar dioceses complied, but dispensations were issued for the Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly and a few other territories, allowing priests to continue celebrating the whole liturgy facing the people. The bishops decided to end the dispensations in November 2021 but a group of priests, religious and laity in the archdiocese, claiming to have the support of the majority of the faithful, still celebrates the entire liturgy with the priest facing the congregation as had been the practice since 1970.

Most priests and laity in the archdiocese, home to some 10% of the 5 million Syro-Malabar Catholics, wanted the celebrants to face the people throughout the Mass.

The June 9 circular asked the archdiocese’s seminarians and deacons to sign a document saying they would celebrate the synod-approved Mass, failing which they would not be ordained.

It told Catholics that participating in a Mass in the church other than the synod-approved one after July 3 would be invalid, and such Masses would not satisfy the Sunday obligation. The circular also said priests without the bishop’s mandate would not be allowed to administer parishes or church-run institutions.

However, leaders spearheading the struggle say they will not accept the synod-approved Mass.

“Let me make it very clear we are not going to accept the synod-approved Mass,” said Riju Kanjookaran, the spokesperson of the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency, a group representing priests, religious and laity that spearheads the protest for the traditional Mass.

“This is an arbitrary decision taken without consulting our priests and lay leaders, and nobody is bound to comply with it,” he told UCA News June 10.

Kanjookaran questioned the validity of the pastoral letter when an extraordinary synod has been convened for June 14 to discuss the liturgy dispute.

“It clearly shows that the synod does not want to listen to either priests or the laity. They instead want to have their way,” he added.

All the parishes have passed resolutions supporting the traditional Mass and handed them over to the synod and the Vatican. The archdiocese has close to 470 priests, and 450 priests stand for the traditional Mass, he said.

In May, Pope Francis said the divisions within the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India are the work of the devil, who has convinced some people, including priests, that their way is the only way to celebrate the Eucharist.

“This is where the devil — the devil exists — the divider, creeps in thwarting the most heartfelt desire the Lord expressed before he sacrificed himself that we, his disciples, would be one, without divisions, without breaking communion,” the pope said May 13 in an audience with Archbishop Thattil, and pilgrims from the Eastern Catholic Church.

    

The Giver of light, being Light from Light,
Thou givest eyes to the man born blind, O Word.

On this day, the sixth Sunday after Pascha, we are celebrating the miracle of the Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, performed over a man born blind. This miracle, like the ones with the Samaritan woman and the paralytic, was performed with the help of water. It happened as follows. When Christ, while speaking with the Jews, declared Himself equal to God the Father and said, Before Abraham was, I am (Jn. 8:58), they took up stones to stone Him.

Having retired from there, He saw a stumbling blind man, who was born like this, having only the outlines of eyes and cavities instead of them. So, when the Savior met him in this state, the disciples wondered: Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (Jn. 9:2), for they had heard Him say to the paralytic, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more (Jn. 5:14), and had heard that He… recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them (Jer. 32:18). In addition, the Epicurean opinion prevailed among some Jews that the souls pre-exist before the birth of the bodies, and those souls who sinned in a bodiless form are sent to the earth. Rejecting all such beliefs, Christ said: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him (Jn. 9:3). By “works of God” He meant, “My works”. For here He was not talking about God the Father, since the phrase “so that” indicates a judgment, not a reason.

Having said this, Christ spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle and anointed where the blind man’s eyes were supposed to be with clay, and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam in order to show that He was the One Who, at the very beginning, took dust from the earth and created man. And since the eye is the most important thing in the body, He created it from nothing, thereby showing that He also gives movement to the force of the soul. He used spittle, not water, so that it would be clear that the grace–giving power came from His spittle, not from water, and because He also intended to send the blind man to Siloam. He told him to wash there so that no one would attribute the healing to the local earth and clay. So He sent him to Siloam, to the numerous witnesses of the healing, because he would meet many as he walked with his eyes anointed with clay. Some say that even after washing, the blind man did not remove the clay from his eyes, but that clay itself changed its nature when it came into contact with water in such a way that his eyes were formed.

The word “Siloam” in Hebrew means “sent” (Jn. 9:7), because that pool was located outside Jerusalem. Under Hezekiah, whenever the enemies besieged the city and captured Siloam, the water rushed away from there. And as long as those inside the city did not dig wells and drainage ditches, whenever someone was sent there at the behest of the Prophet Isaiah, the water immediately came out and could be drawn. But if someone came of his own accord or if the enemy came, the flow would stop. And it had been like that ever since. Therefore, wishing to show that He was from God, Christ sent the blind man there, who immediately received his sight. According to some, Siloam was named for the sake of today’s blind man sent by Christ.

So, the blind man who washed himself was healed by some ineffable power, but the sufferer himself did not fathom that mystery. Seeing him see for no obvious cause, his neighbors and acquaintances were in doubt. He said that he had been blind before, and when asked about the cause of his healing, he declared Christ to be the Healer of his illness. Once the Pharisees heard about such a wonderful miracle, they blasphemed the Savior again for not observing the Sabbath, because the miracle had been performed, according to the custom of Christ, on the Sabbath day. There was a division between them: Some, considering the miracles that had occurred, said that Jesus was from God, while others argued that He was not from God, since He did not keep the Sabbath. Those who had a good opinion of Jesus asked the blind man: What sayest thou of Him? (Jn. 9:17). He proclaimed Him a Prophet, which was the most honorable thing for them. But they still didn’t believe that Christ had healed the man born blind. Not trusting the man’s neighbors, the Pharisees naturally sent for his parents. But the more they wanted to hide it in the shadows, the more they brought it to light, since his parents, too, admitted everything—although they cited his age so as not to be expelled from the synagogue. And again they said to the blind man: Give God the praise (Jn. 9:24). For, as they believed, the healing was from God, not from Christ. The latter, they believed was a “sinner”, because He had broken the Sabbath. But the man, wishing to show in practice that Christ is God, answered, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see (Jn. 9:25). The Pharisees asked him again: What did He to thee? how opened He thine eyes? (Jn. 9:26). And the man, vexed, no longer spoke by hints, but entered into an argument with them: If this man were not of God, He could do nothing (Jn. 9:33). And he heard reproaches from the Pharisees for declaring himself a disciple of Jesus and for saying, Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind (Jn. 9:32), for others had healed the blind, but none had ever healed someone blind from birth. So, having ridiculed him, they kicked him out of the synagogue.

After that, Jesus found him and said: Dost thou believe on the Son of God? (Jn. 9:35). But when he learned that this was the One Who had spoken to him and saw Christ (for he had not seen Him before due to his blindness), he worshiped Him and became His disciple, preaching everywhere the good deed that had been done to him.

We can also imagine it allegorically. “The blind man” signifies the Gentiles whom Christ found while passing (cf. Jn. 9:1)—that is, on earth, and not in Heaven; or because He came for the sake of the Jewish people and, “while passing”, appeared to the Gentiles, and spitting on the ground and making “clay”, He “anointed” them (cf. Jn. 9:6)—that is, he first taught them. For He descended like a drop to the earth and was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and after that he taught Divine Baptism, which is Siloam. Further, [the same blind man is] the Christian people from among the Gentiles, bold before all for Christ’s sake, persecuted and witnessing, and finally recognized and glorified by Him [as His people].

By Thy boundless mercy, O Giver of light, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Kontakion of the Sunday of the Blind Man, tone 4:

I come to Thee, O Christ, blind from birth in my spiritual eyes, and I call to Thee in repentance: Thou art the most radiant light of those in darkness!

Prior to the second anniversary of a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its prior abortion precedent, pro-life activists said much of their work remains to be done.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, told OSV News in a June 10 interview “we realized quickly we have a challenge on our hands,” pointing to losses at the ballot box after the Dobbs ruling, with more such contests on the horizon.

“So after two years, there is still reason to celebrate because we know God’s grace is more powerful than all this, but also, we have to embrace the challenge that faces us,” he said.

The Supreme Court issued its historic decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization June 24, 2022, a little over a month after Politico published a leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in the case. The leak caused a public firestorm before the court issued its official ruling and is seen as the most significant breach of the court’s confidentiality in its history.

The Dobbs case involved a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, in which the state directly challenged the high court’s previous abortion-related precedents in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Supreme Court ultimately overturned its own prior rulings, undoing nearly a half-century of its own precedent on the issue and returning it to legislatures.

While Roe and its ensuing precedents were in place, states were generally barred from restricting abortion prior to viability, or the point at which a child could survive outside the womb. When Roe was issued in 1973, fetal viability was considered to be 28 weeks gestation, but current estimates are generally considered to be 23-24 weeks, with some estimates as low as 22 weeks as medical technology continues to improve. After the Dobbs ruling, states across the country quickly moved to either restrict or expand access to abortion.

While supporters often described Roe as settled law, opponents argued the court in 1973 improperly legalized abortion nationwide, a matter opponents said should have been left to legislators in Congress or state governments. Many, including the Catholic Church, opposed the ruling on moral grounds that the practice takes the life of an unborn child. Opponents of the ruling challenged it for decades, both in courts and in the public square, such as the national March for Life held annually in Washington.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life organization, told OSV News that after Dobbs, there was “so much confusion about what that means and anger and frustration from people who are confused about the inherent dignity of the unborn child and how abortion impacts women. So, I think that we’re still very much in the middle of that reverberation.”

When discussing abortion policy, Mancini said, pro-life advocates should strive “to get very clear” on the specific state, law or situations involved “because there’s a lot of misinformation out there right now.”

In the years following Dobbs, some women in states that restricted abortion said they were denied timely care for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies or experienced other adverse pregnancy outcomes as a result of medical professionals’ hesitation due to unclear abortion legislation. But pro-life activists said laws restricting abortion contained exceptions for such circumstances. Their opponents claimed bill texts insufficiently addressed those circumstances or lacked clarity on exceptions.

Public support for legal abortion also increased after Roe was overturned, according to multiple polls conducted in the years following the Dobbs ruling. In multiple elections since the ruling, ballot measures on abortion have so far proven elusive for the pro-life movement. In elections in both 2022 and 2023, voters in Ohio, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont and Kansas either rejected new limitations on abortion or expanded legal protections for it.

Several states — including Maryland and Florida — have ongoing efforts to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitutions on the ballot, with more states likely to follow suit.

Kelsey Pritchard, state public affairs director for SBA Pro-Life America, told OSV News in an interview that since the Dobbs decision, “we’ve gained major ground in the fight for life.”

“And you look at the states, and today we have 24 states that have laws defending life at 15 weeks or sooner, and 20 of those states have a law that protects babies with a heartbeat,” she said.

Asked about the upcoming ballot measures in November, Pritchard said, “People are literally going to vote in November and their votes could save lives or end lives depending upon how they vote.”

Pritchard said pro-life advocates must respond to “fear-mongering” about state abortion restrictions, including arguing that “there is a life of the mother exception in every single state” with restrictions.

Asked about how pro-life advocates should approach ballot initiatives on abortion, Bishop Burbidge said that efforts have been made, and should continue to be made, “to win minds by proclaiming the truth and proclaiming the Gospel of Life.”

“So we have the truth. So there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “And we’ve proclaimed that clearly and we will continue to do so without compromise. But I think what we’ve learned is that we also have to transform hearts.”

“We have to speak to the hearts of people who love women and love children. So do we. So do we, and we want to be there for every woman and every child,” he added.

Bishop Burbidge said that those seeking to aid the pro-life cause should offer their prayers, and they can sign up for alerts and resources on the committee’s work by visiting respectlife.org.

“I think beyond our role in advocacy too, the Catholic Church has long offered hope, healing, and material support to vulnerable mothers and children,” he said, noting that Walking with Moms in Need and Project Rachel are a means of such support.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue in June a decision in a case concerning mifepristone, a pill commonly used for early abortion as well as for managing early miscarriage, its first major case involving abortion since Dobbs.

    

When I studied Ancient History in the fifth grade, I really wanted to become an archaeologist. Getting ready for expeditions, taking part in excavations, and studying the artifacts—that’s what I was dreaming about! I started studying local lore, assuming that this may bring my dream closer to reality. Our history teacher Nadezhda Anatolievna paid great attention to the knowledge and mastering of this subject—she had a comprehensive approach when she taught us the history of our region (this was a subject they used to teach in elementary school at the time), organized a school museum with several exhibits and an extracurricular study class where anyone could write his own script and conduct tours of the museum. As a middle school student, I offered tours for kindergarteners and first-grade students there.

Younger students were taken on a tour of the so-called “hut.” It was a classroom showcasing various items from peasant life. Its women’s and men’s exhibits presented practically everything necessary for housekeeping. This room’s exhibits didn’t seem to surprise me too much at the time, but now, with every passing year, I have a growing admiration for the wisdom, ingenuity and the skills of our ancestors. They knew how to make practically anything by hand. We can’t reproduce today even a half of what they were doing every day. We can lament many things about that time, especially illiteracy, but we who were brought up in the age of consumerism cannot be compared to them.

Often the backstory about the subject matter is much more exciting than the subject it presents

Another room in the museum was located in the hallway of the recreation area. There were several exhibition stands dedicated to different subjects and periods of our history, as well as some models. Older students and adults would visit this area after they viewed the “hut” exhibits. Like any other museum, the information on the stands here was rather succinct. Or there was no information at all. But there was so much work and research behind each photo or brief reference! Often the backstory of obtaining a particular image is much more interesting than the story of the people depicted on it. It is the same with other artifacts.

How can we bring Religion and Science Need Each OtherChristianity is not hostile to science. Christianity was a parent of science and Christians continue to work in science. Christianity will not allow science to overstep her bounds and claim to be the only source of knowledge. Scientism, the notion that only science finds truth, is the enemy of Christ, but it is also the enemy of poetry, art, and mathematics!

“>science and life together? Are these notions on the same plane? Or, can it be that life, with its sorrow and joy, stands on its own and science is something distant and unattainable? History as a science has its own peculiarities. History requires that we restore the course of events according to archaeological finds and surviving written sources, and they often contradict one another. What was the social and political life of society, what was its everyday life like, what wars and natural phenomena was it experiencing? Since life on our planet is measured by a great number of years, the objects we dig from the ground primarily bring more questions than answers about the history of that region or era. It is equally difficult to find the truth in written sources, since it’s practically impossible to verify them. How lucky are those researchers if their finds (such as an artifact or a record in an archive/book/map) can support their earlier assumptions, guesses and speculations.

I studied well at school. But I always eagerly waited for that real, penultimate study process to begin. When shall we stop simply exploring all those formulas and theorems, rules and exceptions to the rules, and begin to learn how to use them in real life? I failed to see it happen. Not even during my studies at the university. Not sure what influenced this. Quite possibly it was because of the existing approach to teaching, the education process, or the absence of an individual approach. Nowadays, some decades later, I still look for those connecting links and try to explain them to children. I continue to study along with them, because in my time at school I was unable to grasp those cause-and-effect links. It wasn’t easy to achieve during the lessons taught by Nadezhda Anatolievna either. I think she spent a great deal of time getting ready for those lessons in order to “feed” obscure information to her students in understandable terms.

It is possible that every science has its own approach. So, in order to learn something you need to perceive and understand it yourself, finding all possible meeting points between this particular school subject and life at a given moment. It is good if a teacher/educator helps to organize the process of learning so that it will resonate in the hearts of his pupils. Quite likely, it won’t work for everyone. But let’s hope that it will work for some of them. I remember how we, the guides, stood at the hallway in front of the museum entrance and greeted guests on our school museum tours by using a story from the fairy tale “By Pike’s Will.” The kids, of course, were surprised. The teachers smiled. Besides, according to Nadezhda Anatolievna’s idea, I greeted our visitors wearing a Russian folk costume…

A teacher needs to try to grasp his subject himself in order to locate the meeting points between his subject and life

Your interest in history as a science is awakened at such moments. Not only the facts so difficult to grasp and memorize because they belong to the distant past, but a whole story derived from a single fact. Sometimes presented as a fairy tale, or wearing a costume, or even singing a song. Drawings, photos, proverbs, monuments of architectonics and architecture, and household tools—a competent teacher will use it all.

I don’t remember my communication with my teacher at school time. All that I remember is Nadezhda Anatolievna’s calm work, without any fuss, and her direct participation in the group tours of the museum, her research and gradual accumulation of different information about the life of the school, its founding, life during the war, day-to-day activities, and sincere interest in every single aspect of life. Over the years, grown up orphans from a former orphanage established at a local estate visited us at school. We also met with the relatives of a plane crew lost during the war when they visited the aircraft crash site. We needed to welcome them and impart kind words to everyone.

Unfortunately, I didn’t participate, but many students who were older than me went with Nadezhda Anatolievna on expeditions to nearby villages. They collected artifacts and photos for the museum, as well as recorded memories. Twenty years ago, there were still craftswomen who could thread a weaving loom and make it fully ready for work. Each forged nail, every clay milk jug in the museum of the peasant hut had its own story. And all the artifacts came to the museum in various ways. This, too, has already become a part of its history, albeit unspoken and unknown.

Years later, upon graduating from school and the institute, I returned to studies of local history. I started by actively searching for my ancestors, made a genealogical tree according to the data available at that time, and began to collect local history information with particular zeal. I collected every kind of information. Because man and personal history are an integral part of the historical period. I sought information in libraries and museums; I also asked local historians and searched archives. It turned out that there are still people in our village who are genuinely interested in the history of our region. With the guidance of Nadezhda Anatolievna, we began to meet practically every month in the reading room of a local library. How warm and wonderful were those meetings! Soulful, filled with warmth and history, the discussions there would often become jumbled because the participants had too much information and excitement. Sometimes had more structured meetings, with several reports presented by various group members. And then, two hours later, we’d walk home together. We would return home on frosty evenings when the snow crunched under our feet, or though pouring rain in spring or fall. I was lucky, because Nadezhda Anatolievna lived next door to me, so we were the last to say goodbye. That’s when the past smoothly transitioned into the present, when plans were made for the future, and tentative ideas of our future expeditions were laid out.

Nadezhda Anatolievna was the soul of our meetings and their leader. She selected the theme and tactfully commented and supplemented our individual reports. We would often explore curious finds and artifacts brought to our meetings. I remember a piece of a mammoth jaw found not far from our village during the construction of a gas station. I remember that memorable meeting of ours as if it were yesterday. How reverently we unfolded a canvas cloth holding an artifact, so incomprehensible and distant from our day…

The participants often brought maps, photographs, drawings, and albums to the meetings. And lots of memories. Sometimes we exchanged news like getting a reply from the archive, or an important article published somewhere, new people we have met and new things we have learned. We shared news about a trip to the archives and finding important information there, sometimes written in illegible handwriting, in the midst of hundreds of first and last names. We were so inspired and enthused, but even more excited about these meetings! I don’t know about the other participants, but these meetings gave me new energy to keep looking for new leads and clues from long-lost threads and tangled bits of our history. Thanks to my teacher, many forgotten pieces of history seemed to come back to life, inspiring and stirring interest over and over again.

Thanks to my teacher, much of what we had forgotten as if found new life, inspired, and stirred interest over and over again

Nadezhda Anatolievna was able to publish several informative brochures about the history of our region. She accumulated this information over years of work and dozens of meetings with elderly residents who shared their memories. She stopped working as a schoolteacher for several years ago, but she continues to head the school museum activities. Not only does she preserve the past, but she also actively promotes it among the schoolchildren and the guests of the school. She tells the people of today about our hopes that in the future new researchers will find new important and interesting facts on the history of our region and the people who lived there.

Our shared interests have helped me to maintain communication with this bright and wonderful woman for several decades. It is such a joy to be a close associate of such a wise and thoughtful person as Nadezhda Anatolievna! It is wonderful that I have someone to call and share bits of local lore news; that our local landowner’s hamlet had not two but four owners, or that the instructions left by General A.V. Suvorov for his peasants have been found and published, or that he was an outstanding landowner. She is the one I can talk with about my search for the fates of army recruits, repressed clergymen, or wealthy and hardworking peasants. She is the one I can share the joy with about the memorialization of the name of a fallen pilot in a neighboring village. Seven last names (of a pilot and his crew) were etched in the stone of a war memorial, but the eighth pilot wasn’t listed for unknown reasons. So much time has passed and it took so much effort, attention and campaigning! His relatives came, but they didn’t find his last name on the monument. Only now, nearly eighty years later, the last name of pilot Borisov was added to the memorial plaque. This person’s name found its due place on the monument.

I was recently able to impress Nadezhda Anatolievna. The fate of a priest who served in a local church in the early twentieth century has remained unknown for many years. His name was mentioned in the documents regarding the seizure of church treasures, but that was it. For a long time, the local historians could only assume where and how Fr. Theodore spent his last years. So many different documents and lists were inspected by all kinds of people throughout those years! But no one was able to find the cherished name that has become especially dear thanks to the surviving memories of parishioners and photographs. Remote access to certain archives in our country today allows anyone interested in the history of their family to find information about their ancestors. So, while I was looking through hundreds of scanned pages of documents in hopes of finding my family members, I accidentally came upon our “lost” Fr. Theodore. This priest died in 1922 of typhoid fever and was buried in the cemetery next to the church where he has served for over thirty years. It is hard to convey the feelings that rushed over us after this discovery. Even now, we still remain under the impression of that find and the excitement still runs high. As it turns out, Fr. Theodore was practically next to us all that time (for a century already) under the shadow of his church, which never closed down. Probably, this is how it happens not just in research, but also in life. We often look for things in all the wrong places, or assume the wrong things, while the answer would lie on the surface, right before our eyes. It’s just that the right time hadn’t yet come to find.

As in any other process, it is important to communicate with like-minded people, be it in science, or in creative fields. This is about having support, mentorship, and exchange of experience. It is too hard to start and continue doing things on your own, and you don’t always have enough strength, knowledge, or assertiveness. But one phone call can change many things. And once again, you hurry to respond, and once again, you are anxious to research, discover and meet new people.

Photo: miass-hram.ru     

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. John. (9:1-38)

This reading given to us on this the The Sixth Sunday after Pascha, of the Blind ManSo, the blind man who washed himself was healed by some ineffable power, but the sufferer himself did not fathom that mystery.

“>sixth Sunday of Pascha is powerful for many reasons. One of the amazing discussions that occurs near the beginning of the sermon is the question asked by the disciples to our Lord Jesus “Master, who sinned? This man or his parents.” Of course Jesus quickly answers them and we discussed the meaning of this many times but the bigger picture of this gospel passage is about the response of the blind man as well as the Jewish leaders to the fact that this man had been healed.

One of the most important aspects of reading the Bible that we learn from the Church Fathers is that how we read the Bible is of utmost importance. There are right and wrong ways of reading the text. One of the ways of reading the text which is considered incorrect is to read everything with a strictly literal meaning. Let’s give an example of this from the Psalms “Happy is the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!” Ps137:9 Now if we assume that the literal meaning is all there is to this passage then we might be forced to do terrible things. Thankfully we don’t have to resort to this today. In addition to the apparent meaning there is usually a spiritual, and deep allegorical meaning to texts as well. Scripture is a treasure chest that begs us to dig deeper.

The blindness of this man is likewise not merely about his blindness, just as the recovery of his sight is not merely about physical healing…it is about something more. The recovery of his sight, the end of his blindness is also a symbol of his discovery of Jesus Christ. It is the discovery that his physical sight was only restored so that his spiritual sight could be restored. Of course this makes complete and perfect sense if we take Our Lord at his word when he tells his disciples “I am the light of the world.”

It all makes perfect sense. If Jesus Christ is the light of the world it means that if we do not have Him we are in complete darkness. Any one of you who has ever been in a power outage without a flashlight knows that in truth you are almost completely blind…….almost. You may in fact see things like shadowy figures and so forth, but you will not be seeing your world as it really is. Only light reveals the true appearance.

This is the true context of what is happening in today’s gospel reading. It is about physical blindness and much more. It is about the blindness of the Pharisees who are in complete disbelief at this miracle. Even though everything points to the truth, such as the eyewitness accounts of the blind man’s own parents and finally his own testimony, the Pharisees do not, cannot believe because they have decided the outcome before knowing the facts. It is a like a form of cognitive dissonance. They had decided among themselves long before that Jesus of Nazareth was a troublemaker and no prophet. Of course this was also because of the light of Christ, since that light not only revealed God, but it also reveals the sinfulness of all men….and most of us don’t enjoy it when our sins are pointed out. It is rightly painful to us because our sinful desires have made themselves comfortable within us.

We often prejudge like these Pharisees when we misjudge the character of others, but it is truly dangerous when we misjudge the character of God. When we say that something in our lives is impossible we might be misjudging God and saying that He is powerless over our lives! We shut out the possibility of healing, of restoration, of light entering our lives just like the Pharisees did. Instead of rejoicing at the power and love of God, we lament at our misfortunes. We might become suspicious and look at the work of God through our own uninformed darkness……we don’t actually see God. We see luck or chance or fate or something else. That is darkness, like a spiritual power outage, we see some shadowy figures of our life and assume we understand life. Even more than this we sometimes see good and godly things and call them evil. The Pharisees did that. They didn’t even trust their own senses but rationalized an alternative, evil answer. See how easily we can become confused and disoriented by Satan?!

The way to a proper understanding of God is not a mental exercise. It is not blind faith either. The fathers of the Church tell us that we come to a proper understanding of God through an active practice of faith, through the very act of faithfulness itself. So our faith may start as a small seed but when we take that seed seriously and plant it deep in our hearts and pursue the cultivation of that seed diligently, daily, in small ways, through the life of the Church, then that small seed of faith will grow and flourish and bear beautiful life giving fruit. With care and by the grace of God, it will become an overwhelming garden that gives us more than we can even imagine. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

St. John of KronstadtSt. John of Kronstadt

“>St. John of Kronstadt once wrote,

“The Church, through the temple and Divine service, acts upon the entire man, educates him wholly; acts upon his sight, hearing, smelling, feeling, taste, imagination, mind, and will, by the splendor of the icons and of the whole temple, by the ringing of bells, by the singing of the choir, by the fragrance of the incense, the kissing of the Gospel, of the cross and the holy icons, by the prosphoras, the singing, and sweet sound of the readings of the Scriptures.”

We partake of the life of faith, of the things of God and through partaking we are confirmed and renewed in our understanding. A small bit of faith becomes a great deal of faith in the one who chases after God. A small bit of faith vanishes and disappears in the one who ignores or denies God.

Acknowledging God as the Light of the world and pursuing that light, through His body, which is the Church, is the way to begin seeing the world through fresh new eyes. Because if you are seeing the world without God, you are also seeing it without light and without light we all become blind. We walk in this world from place to place aimlessly. But God doesn’t desire that for His creation. He desires that we should know Him and love Him and that we should continue to grow in this dynamic of love forever. But in order for these things to happen we have to also address our own blindness. Each of us is blinded by sin.

Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)Philaret (Voznesensky) Metropolitan

“>Metropolitan Philaret of New York once wrote, “The Church, telling us today about this miracle of the Savior, at the same time chants in the person of each of us: “Blind with my spiritual eyes, I come to you, O Christ, like one born blind.” Not long ago we prayed to our Lord intensively: “Grant that I may see my own sins.” If we ask to see, to be able to see our sins it means we cannot see them as well as is needed. This is because our “spiritual eyes” are blind.” He continues saying “Our Lord Jesus Christ came to heal us of this brokenness, because no other force in the world can heal us of this frightful corruption by sin.”

May Our Lord pour out the full might of His love in order to grant each of us this healing so that we might see Him not merely with our eyes but truly with the eyes of the heart. AMEN.

Early Church historians tell us that St. Paul was short, perhaps little more than five feet. But he stands before us as a giant. The achievements of Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Shakespeare, and Einstein seem small when compared to those of Paul. C.S. Lewis imagined that an encounter with him, even in heaven, would be “rather an overwhelming experience.” He recalled that “when Dante saw the great apostles in heaven they affected him like mountains.”

Some scholars argue that, if he had gone into philosophy, he would have surpassed Plato and Aristotle. But he was not just a thinker. He was a pastor as well, and a missionary. He traveled far and wide to win souls. He negotiated for the peace of the Church. He corrected and encouraged people. He preached and he wrote with passion and wit. He suffered much and, ultimately, he died for the cause. He aimed to extend the reach of Christianity through all the western lands of the Roman Empire. And he succeeded to an astonishing degree. By the end of his life, Christianity enjoyed a worldwide presence. Within a century — largely due to the momentum of Paul’s preaching — the Church had grown so large that it was perceived as a threat to the Roman social order.

That was his first revolution, but not his last. He has emerged repeatedly down the millennia as a fresh voice, compelling preachers, rulers, and ordinary Christians to see a new way of living. In the fifth century, St. Augustine rethought the world along lines that he discerned in Paul. In the 16th century, Paul’s letters were at the center of the controversies of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation — controversies that reshaped the world.

It’s hard to exaggerate Paul’s importance, though some people do. He was not the “founder of Christianity” or its “inventor,” as some contend. Christ himself founded the Church, and he founded it on another apostle: St. Peter. But Christ did call Saul of Tarsus and commissioned him to receive the Gospel and take it to the world. Paul gratefully acknowledged his debt not only to Jesus, but to the apostles Peter, James, and John (see Galatians 1:18 and 2:9). So, though Paul did not found the Church of Jesus Christ, he founded many churches in Jesus’ name.

But, uniquely inspired by God, he developed a theology of the Church that was authoritative. The Church’s self-understanding is dependent upon the words of Paul. We cannot understand ourselves as Christians unless we see ourselves in the light of his letters.

I’ve read and taught all of Paul’s letters many, many times. And he has taught me how to think and what to believe more than any other human. I’ve stood where he was beheaded; I’ve knelt next to his mortal remains. I have spoken to him in prayer and asked him for favors hundreds of times.

Paul is not my Savior, but he may be the most thoroughly saved sinner, and that makes me want to be more like him.

Stolobny Island, Tver Province, Russia, June 11, 2024

Photo: tvereparhia.ru     

The Russian Orthodox Church festively celebrated the feast of the Uncovering of the Relics of St. Nil of Stolobny on Sunday, June 9.

The feast of the 16th-century monastic saint was celebrated by Their Eminences Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest, Aristarkh of Kemerovo, Ambrose of Tver, and the special guest from the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Metropolitan Joanikije of Montenegro, reports the Metropolis of Tver.

Photo: tvereparhia.ru     

The Liturgy was celebrated in the Holy Theophany Cathedral at the St. Nil of Stolobensk Hermitage. The bishops were concelebrated by local and visiting clergy. The service was sung by the diocesan youth choir.

At the end of the service, a procession with the relics of St. Nil was held around the monastery, during which the participants honored the memory of the deceased inhabitants of the monastery. At the end of the procession, a new icon of the Martyrs of Stolobny, Vitaly, Pavel, Dionysiy, and Vladimir, was blessed.

Photo: tvereparhia.ru     

Then Met. Hilarion read a prayer to St. Nil and the hierarchs and clergy venerated his relics.

After the dismissal, Met. Ambrose of Tver presented the concelebrating hierarchs with icons of St. Nil with a particle of his holy relics.

After addresses by the clergy, the faithful passed under the relics of St. Nil, held up by the clergy.

The Rite of the Panagia was then served, and all present were welcomed to a fraternal meal, which fed more than 600 people.

Venerable Nilus of Stolbensk LakeThe island, in the middle of the lake, was covered over by dense forest. Saint Nilus found a small hill and dug out a cave, and after a while he built a hut, in which he lived for twenty-six years.

“>Read about the life of St. Nil here.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

St. Barnabas was born a Jew in Cyprus, probably around the time that Jesus was born. Although he had wealthy parents, at some point during his life, St. Barnabas sold everything he had, and gave all his money to the Church. As one of Jesus’ earliest followers, he is traditionally considered one of the 72 disciples of Christs.

Barnabas is responsible for welcoming St. Paul into the Church. He converted people to Christianity in Antioch and was called by God to become an “Apostle of the Gentile” along with St. Paul.

St. Barnabas is said to have been stoned to death in Salamis around the year 61.

Cleveland, June 10, 2024

Photo: domoca.org     

A fundraising campaign has been launched to finance restoration work at St. Theodosius Cathedral in Cleveland, which suffered severe fire damage in Fire breaks out at Cleveland’s historic St. Theodosius Cathedral (+VIDEO)St. Theodosius Cathedral (OCA Diocese of the Midwest), built in 1911–1912, is formally recognized as a Cleveland landmark and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

“>late last month.

A massive fire broke out at the church on May 28, especially damaging the central dome, which has since had to be completely dismantled.

St. Theodosius Cathedral (OCA Diocese of the Midwest), built in 1911–1912, is formally recognized as a Cleveland landmark and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The church that preceded the cathedral was built with donations from Royal Martyr Nicholas II of Russia.

His Eminence Archbishop Daniel visited the cathedral just hours after the tragedy. In a letter to his diocese, he offered words of encouragement:

It was emotionally moving and spiritually uplifting to gather in prayer with the local clergy and faithful on Wednesday morning, just hours after the fire. Standing before the open doors of the Cathedral, surrounded by fallen debris and with the smell of smoke still in the air, we sang the Paschal Canon. With these familiar melodies and comforting verses, we were reminded of what we continue to celebrate in these forty days of Pascha: Christ has conquered death and the powers of darkness and has given us the life and light that flow from His victorious Resurrection! Our coming together to proclaim Christ’s Victory in word and song, especially in the midst of this painful loss, is a great testament of faith. It directs our hope to another victory, one that is yet to be shown, as the work of the restoration of the Cathedral begins.

On June 3, the Diocese of the Midwest reported that the cathedral’s main dome was deemed structurally unstable and in danger of collapsing, and thus had to be systematically dismantled.

The cathedral is in need of support to finance this necessary work, and has set up a fundraising campaign on Tithely.

Abp. Daniel concluded his letter to the diocese:

As the newest chapter of the Cathedral’s history begins to be written, I call upon you to pray for Father Ján Čižmár, Cathedral Dean, for the parish leadership, and for all the members of the Saint Theodosius Cathedral parish community. May we all, as Saint Paul exhorts us in his letter to the Galatians, “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

While Fisher told CNA that usually moves to obstruct the mission of the Church are “more subtle, like attacks on conscience or restrictions on who can be hired,” one case stood out in particular.

Pointing to the forced takeover of Catholic-run Calvary Hospital in the nation’s capital by the Australian Capital Territory, Fisher described the case as the most blatant interference with the Church’s mission in recent times.

The government took over and renamed “Calvary Hospital” to “North Canberra Hospital” in 2023, despite protests by a shocked archbishop and subsequent legal challenge. Costs and compensation are still making headlines in local media.

“Snatching the land, building, staff, and operations of a Catholic hospital was really just fast-tracking the same end to which these smaller, subtler strikes are aimed,” the archbishop said.

The battle over religious schools

In a country where one in five students attend Catholic schools, the prelate expressed deep concern over legislative efforts to curb the impact of Catholic institutions, especially their ability to evangelize.

“Those who object to the Church having any space in the public square are effectively being invited to engage in lawfare against our schools,” he said, adding this constituted “using anti-discrimination laws as a sword to stop us from operating in accordance with the Catholic ethos.”

Addressing the Australian Law Reform Commission’s recommendations imposing restrictions on religious schools’ ability to hire staff and present Catholic teachings without caveats, Fisher warned that such measures would fundamentally alter the nature of these schools.

“If its recommendations are implemented, Catholic schools will be largely indistinguishable from their public counterparts,” he warned.

Fisher also warned about risks from recent bureaucratic recommendations, such as stripping charitable status from religious institutions.

Such a move, the prelate warned, could devastate the Church’s ability to provide education, health, and welfare services.

The notion that religious institutions might no longer qualify for charitable status in such a way was “absurd,” Fisher asserted.

Human rights and Christian dignity

The archbishop pointed to the profound philosophical clash underpinning these legislative and bureaucratic actions.

He told CNA that modern attempts to claim certain human rights while denying the existence of inherent human dignity — particularly as articulated by Christian anthropology — are fundamentally flawed.

“But this is as wise as building a house on sand; without the firm foundation of the infinite dignity of the human person the house of human rights will ultimately fall,” Fisher emphasized.

Steadfastness and a spiritual path forward

Looking ahead, the Sydney archbishop expressed hope that elected officials would recognize the significant contributions of religious believers to Australian society. He called on the Church and its faithful to remain steadfast in their mission, regardless of restrictive legislation and policies.

“We must be very serious about proclaiming the truth of marriage and family by the way we live our lives,” Fisher told CNA.

The Australian prelate also called on Catholics to take spiritual action: “The best thing we can do to protect religious freedom is to be serious about being saints for our time, committing ourselves to prayer, service, and the sacramental life.”