Tag: Christianity

Photo: optina.ru     

The first four days of Lent have passed, during which the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete was read at Compline. The Canon is a chord, a prelude, a tuning fork, by which we must attune our souls to a penitential, contrite, and Lenten mood. It is very important for us to keep the Canon sounding in our hearts throughout Lent, and it is no coincidence that on the fifth week the whole Canon will be read, and we will again enter into its depth with penitence.

What is Lent? Abstaining from chicken and TV? Forty days of “torment” without cheese and yogurt? An opportunity to lose weight? Or is it a much deeper, subtle, mysterious and special spiritual space?

Lent is an opportunity for us to escape from the deadening atmosphere of vanity, haste, chattering, superficiality, emptiness, idleness, despondency and boredom, into which we often voluntarily immerse ourselves.

Lent is a God-given chance to stop, get out of the rhythm of callous insensitivity and lack of prayer and think about the most important things—about Eternity, about the soul, about God.

Lent is a space of love, kindness, compassion, self-reproach, leniency towards others, penitential tears, watching your heart and soul! This spiritual “dotted line” sounds very vividly in the Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.

Lent is called “Great” not only because it is a particularly strict, long and intense period. It is great because its goal is great. The Pascha of Christ! Pascha of beauty! And although it seems to us that Pascha is still very, very far away, in fact already at the beginning of Lent its joyful, inspired, triumphant victorious dawn is breaking!

The purpose of a very difficult, complex, multifaceted spiritual Lenten journey is to purify the heart for your meeting with the Risen Christ. Therefore, Lent should help us get rid of what destroys us, what brings death, chaos, hatred and darkness into our hearts; get rid of everything that prevents this Meeting. Some are being destroyed by anger; others are being destroyed by drugs; the hearts of others are bursting with grumbling, displeasure and fear; others are being overcome by pride and selfishness. The soul has a whole collection of dangerous diseases: the gangrene of conceit, the peritonitis of envy, metastases of vanity, ulcers of lust…

But the main danger lies in the fact that sin is not just a deviation from some moral rules and generally established taboos. Sin is your surrender, a departure from your deep essence of being, from what God intended you to be.

The problem is not that a person stumbled, got angry, was greedy with others, offended someone or ate cookies that may contain traces of milk. True, all this is not good, but the point is that if a person does not live in the grace-filled, deep and mysterious stream of Divine Providence, if he does not want to fulfill the will of the Creator, if he casts stones at God, if he tries to substitute the Heavenly Fatherland with a pathetic, crooked earthly pedestal, if his heart is covered with the grave ashes of vanity, the search for comfort and pleasures, then he terribly destroys, ruins and kills himself! And his life, despite all the successful deals, the tinsel of pleasures, earthly records and successes, can turn out to be a terrible failure, a fake, a flop and a disaster. The Holy Fathers say that “the mystery of man lies not only in living, but in what to live for.”

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God (1 Jn. 3:1), the Apostle John the Theologian exclaims. Not only be called, but to actually be children of the Heavenly Father!

We see that modern life is very complicated and confusing. Instead of peace and love, people choose war, global chaos, and hatred for their neighbor. Back in the 1970s, St. Justin (Popovic) of Celije said with sorrow: “Today more than ever Europe has become a factory of death… And Christians must carry the radiant image of Christ through the twilight of the modern world, proclaiming it to this world, which is lost in the wilds of self-love!”

The Church wants people to awaken and have an interest in their own souls so that the war in them can stop. Elder Tadej (Štrbulović; 1914­–2003) of Vitovnica admonished one woman, “Stop waging a war!” She wondered in surprise, “What war?” He replied, “You are continuously at war inwardly—you are angry, you condemn, you hate, you are irritated. Stop fighting the war!”

The church wants people not to be engrossed by “swine’s flesh and the flesh pots of Egyptian food”, as St. Andrew of Crete says in the Canon. Not by lustful desires, but by radiant grace and a fountain of Divine waters. The Holy Church returns us a sense of uniqueness, authenticity, and the depth of our being. Thank God that more and more people in Russia are beginning to understand that faith is not ethnography, that Orthodoxy is not a peculiar part of a national landscape. Christianity is a new life! This is the joyful pulsation of Eternity. This is testimony of Divine love on earth, which became permeated with the smell of gunpowder, cynicism, lack of faith and lies, but which is so beautiful!

The Romanian elder Archimandrite Cleopa (Ilie)Cleopa (Ilie), Archimandrite

“>Fr.Cleopa (Ilie; 1912­–1998) would tell people who came to him for advice: “Have the heart of a son towards God; a mother’s heart towards your neighbor; and the mind of a judge towards yourself.” Lent is judgment. A person’s judgment of himself, of his conscience. It’s the judgment of your heart! This is a blessed opportunity to see your real self behind many masks, to break through to your true depth, to feel your utter helplessness, inability and meanness. St. Optina says: “When a person sincerely comes to realize that he is nothing, God begins to create great things out of him.”

The Holy Church always, and especially on these Lenten days, reminds us about the most important thing—seeking the Kingdom of God, the need to acquire the Holy Spirit, the spirit of love, repentance, humility, and peace. We shouldn’t focus only on the Lenten menu, on abstaining from meat and milk products and from watching TV. Although these things are very important, our labors shouldn’t be limited to them!

These words of Venerable Barsanuphius of Optina

“>St. Barsanuphius of Optina reflect on monasticism, they can be applied to any Christian: “External monasticism can be likened to plowing the land; but no matter how much you plow, nothing will grow if you don’t sow anything. Inner monasticism is sowing, and seed is the Jesus Prayer. Prayer illuminates a monastic’s entire inner life and gives him strength to struggle.”

Once a philosopher and a spiritual elder met and started discussing what the most difficult thing is. The philosopher said, “It is very difficult to learn to speak. It is even more difficult to learn to be silent. And it is even more difficult to learn to think. And the most difficult thing is to learn to feel.” Then the elder said after musing, “I agree with all this, but I want to add that the most difficult thing is to learn to love and pray.” The world needs prayer!

The Theology and Memory of Elder Sophrony (Sakharov)”Coming into contact with Father Sophrony was always an event of a most especial kind. His monastics, first and foremost, but also those who made up his wider spiritual family, ‘lived,’ as Father Zacharias put it, ‘in an abundance of the word of God.”’

“>Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) says, “We must teach the whole of humanity to live as one family”, as one circulatory system. But this is very hard to do it if often we can’t even stand a neighbor who lives across from us, or a fellow monk with whom we share a cell. Therefore, we still have a very long, very strenuous, but also a joyful, grace-filled and wonderful path ahead. The path to our heart! And the path to the heart of our neighbor!

“Christians are pilgrims of Eternity. They are constantly searching for Divine gold in the earthly swamp,” St. Justin says. Lent is a marvelous, unique time to feel like a pilgrim of Eternity. To remember how sublime the mission and dignity of man is. And these four grace-filled evenings of prayerful reading of the Great Penitential Canon are a “launching pad”, a “spiritual tuning fork”, by which we must attune our souls to a Lenten mood.

“Watch, O my soul! Be courageous like the great Patriarchs, that thou mayest acquire activity and awareness, be a mind that sees God, reach in contemplation the innermost darkness, and be a great trader.” Amen.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision late March 19 once again blocking Texas from enforcing its controversial law that makes it a state crime for unauthorized migrants to cross into Texas from Mexico.

Earlier the same day, a divided U.S. Supreme Court March 19 lifted its temporary pause on the law and sent the matter back to the federal appeals court, which in effect briefly allowed the state to enforce the law while litigation proceeds.

The justices in the 6-3 majority had not offered a rationale for their finding, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in a concurring opinion that the 5th Circuit should issue a formal decision before the high court intervenes further.

Catholic organizations have opposed the legislation, known as Senate Bill 4, with the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops previously stating it could have “deadly consequences for innocent migrants.”

In a March 19 statement about the law, Texas Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso said, “We are at an urgent and challenging moment in the defense of the rights and dignity of vulnerable persons on the move.”

“Recent events in El Paso, as well as throughout the country also raise the specter of the criminalization of humanitarian aid to migrants and troubling threats to religious liberties enshrined in the First Amendment,” Bishop Seitz said. “These realities call us to prayerfully reflect and consider the requirements of a faith which calls us to respect the inalienable dignity of every human being as well as the imperative to reimagine ways of effectively collaborating to build a society that welcomes, protects, integrates and promotes our sisters and brothers who migrate, and to do so together with them.”

The law, SB 4, still faces legal challenges.

A district judge moved to temporarily block the law Feb. 29, but the 5th Circuit issued an administrative stay on that order, allowing the law to proceed until it could hear the appeal. However, Justice Samuel Alito then put the appeals court’s order on pause March 4, so the Supreme Court could consider emergency requests from the Biden administration and immigrant rights groups to block SB 4’s enforcement amid ongoing litigation.

The Supreme Court lifted that pause March 19. Barrett’s concurrence indicated the 5th Circuit should be the “first mover” in the process before the high court intervenes on its emergency docket. Barrett’s concurrence indicated that if the federal appeals court did not act “soon” the Biden administration could return to the high court.

Hours later, a 5th Circuit panel in a 2-1 decision put the Texas law back on pause in advance of arguments.

Federal law already makes it illegal to enter the U.S. without authorization, and most portions of a similar 2010 Arizona law were later struck down by the Supreme Court. Immigration advocacy groups in Texas filed a lawsuit over the bill prior to the Justice Department’s challenge.

Other Supreme Court justices indicated their concern that Texas’ law would create upheaval if it were allowed to proceed. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who criticized the majority lifting its pause on SB 4’s enforcement, said their order “invites further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement,” by upending “the federal-state balance of power that has existed for over a century, in which the National Government has had exclusive authority over entry and removal of noncitizens.”

“Texas can now immediately enforce its own law imposing criminal liability on thousands of noncitizens and requiring their removal to Mexico,” Sotomayor wrote. “This law will disrupt sensitive foreign relations, frustrate the protection of indi­viduals fleeing persecution, hamper active federal enforce­ment efforts, undermine federal agencies’ ability to detect and monitor imminent security threats, and deter nonciti­zens from reporting abuse or trafficking.”

The Justice Department Jan. 3 sued Texas over SB 4, which grants local law enforcement officials power to arrest migrants suspected of lacking legal authorization to be in the U.S. The legislation forbids such arrests at schools, places of worship, health care facilities or designated SAFE-Ready facilities, which the state operates for those who have experienced sexual assault.

Supporters of the legislation argue it would deter unauthorized entry into the state by empowering its own law enforcement, while opponents argue the law is unconstitutional and inhumane, wading into a power reserved for federal authorities.

Pope Francis has not accepted an invitation to travel to Moscow in June to meet with Vladimir Putin, the director of the Holy See press office said.

A report on the website of Intelligence Online, a French journal, “does not correspond to the truth,” Matteo Bruni told reporters March 20.

A story on the website March 19 had said Ivan Soltanovsky, the Russian ambassador to the Holy See, invited the pope to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow in June, “an invitation that the pope accepted,” Intelligence Online had reported.

The journal said the pope, who repeatedly has been invited to visit Ukraine, would travel to Kyiv immediately after visiting Moscow.

After Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Pope Francis said he would be willing to accept the invitation of the Ukrainian government to visit, but only if he could visit Moscow as well.

Earlier the Russian news agency RIA Novosti had reported that Pope Francis had congratulated Putin on his victory in the presidential election March 17, an election Western observers described as rigged. Bruni had told Catholic News Service March 18 that the report was not true.

The Vatican has repeatedly offered to act as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia, and last year Pope Francis sent his peace envoy for Ukraine, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and Beijing to meet with foreign leaders and advance peace talks on Ukraine.

In early March, however, the pope caused consternation when segments of an interview were released in which he said Russia and Ukraine need to have the “courage of the white flag” to halt the fighting and negotiate.

The phrase “white flag” usually refers to surrendering, and Ukrainian leaders were outraged.

Pope Francis was not asking Ukraine to consider surrendering to Russia when he called for negotiations to end the war, but he was calling for both Russia and Ukraine to cease hostilities and engage in peace talks, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

At the end of his weekly general audience March 20, praying for peace in Ukraine and in the Holy Land, Pope Francis said, “War is always a defeat.”

“We must make every effort to discuss, to negotiate to end war,” he said. “Let’s pray for this.”

Syosset, New York, March 20, 2024

Photo: orthodoxwiki.org     

More than three years after putting it up for sale, the Orthodox Church in America has found a buyer for its property in Syosset, New York, which served as the OCA chancery, the primatial residence, and the home of the Church’s archives for several decades.

The Metropolitan Council of the OCA determined in OCA planning to sell chancery in Syosset, New YorkFollowing a discussion on the physical location of the chancery at its winter session on February 5 and 6 in Syosset, the Metropolitan Council of the OCA resolved that it is not financially feasible to repair and continuing maintaining the chancery, and thus efforts to sell the property are to be made immediately, according to the report published on the official OCA website.

“>February 2020 that it was no longer financially feasible to upkeep the mansion and 15 acres that the Church has owned since the 1950s. The Holy Synod then confirmed the decision to sell the property at its May-June session, and the property was put on the market OCA puts Syosset chancery up for sale, Metropolitan to relocate to D.C.The property has long served as the chancery of the OCA, as well as the primatial residence and home of the Church’s extensive archives.”>that September.

OCA Metropolitan and Chancery relocating to Washington, D.C.His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada, who is the ruling hierarch of the Archdiocese of Washington, will thus reside within the territory of his diocese beginning in June.

“>In 2022, the chancery was moved to Springfield, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., meaning His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of Washington and All America and Canada now lives within the territory of his diocese.

And now, the Church has entered into a purchase agreement for the property, the OCA reports.

The decision to conclude the purchase agreement, with a price of $4.25 million, was approved by the Holy Synod on February 28. Closing is expected within 24-36 months, allowing time for all the necessary state and local regulatory processes.

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A Grammy award-winning Florida priest has been cleared of allegations of sexual misconduct after his accuser recanted his claims and said the accusations had been the product of a “false memory.”

In a letter obtained by CNA, Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Florida, last week told parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda there was “no evidence to support” the allegations that Father Jerome Kaywell had committed sexual misconduct in 2013 and 2014.

Dewane had informed parishioners in January that the diocese had “received notification from a law firm of an allegation of sexual misconduct” regarding Kaywell. The incident “allegedly occurred in the winter of 2013/2014,” the bishop said at the time. The priest was placed on administrative leave after the allegations were leveled against him.

In his letter this month, Dewane told Sacred Heart Parish that shortly thereafter the alleged victim “withdrew his allegation,” with the accuser writing an apology and declaring the alleged sexual misconduct was “a false memory.”

The diocese continued to investigate the matter in accordance with diocesan policy, the bishop said. The diocesan review board subsequently met in March, “examined the investigatory report and all aspects of the matter,” and “unanimously” concluded “that there was no evidence to support the allegation.”

“The Diocesan Review Board recommended that Father Kaywell be returned to ministry,” Dewane wrote. “I have accepted their recommendation and inform you that Father Kaywell has been returned to ministry, effective immediately.”

“Therefore, I consider the matter closed and the good name of Father Jerome Kaywell restored,” the bishop said.

Throughout the investigation, the bishop noted, Kaywell “maintained his innocence, stating that the allegation could not have happened.”

As of Tuesday, the priest was once again listed on Sacred Heart’s website as its pastor after having been removed during the investigation.

Kaywell has been pastor of the Punta Gorda church since 2004. He attended both St. Francis University and St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary.

He is known for having established a musical and advertising career before becoming a priest. In 1985 he recorded a Grammy-winning album, “Let My People Go,” with the gospel group the Winans. He was ordained in 1991 and has released two more albums since then.

Gračanica, Pristina District, Kosovo, March 20, 2024

Photo: eparhija-prizren.com     

The Serbian Orthodox Gračanica Monastery solemnly commemorated on Sunday the 20th anniversary of a tragic event in Kosovo that left at least 14 dead and hundreds wounded.

The memorial service for the victims of the March Pogrom (March 17-18, 2004) was celebrated by His Grace Abbot Hilarion (Lupulovic)Hilarion (Lupulovic), Abbot

“>Bishop Ilarion of Novo Brdo, with Their Graces Bishops Metodiije of Budimlja and Nikšić from Montenego and Teodosije of Raška and Prizren in attendance, reports the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raška and Prizren.

The service was also attended by numerous faithful and representatives of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija Affairs.

Bp. Ilarion spoke of those who were murdered 20 years ago:

Zlatibor was murdered by rioters in front of his family, his wife. In Gnjilane, Boban was martyred, followed by the death of his mother. In Mitrovica, Jana and Borivoje. In the village of Drajkovce, a father and son. Nenad perished in Lipljan. We must always be aware that the path we are on is one of endeavor, a path of suffering at various levels.

Photo: eparhija-prizren.com     

After the memorial, participants went to the Gračanica Cultural Center, where they laid white flowers at the Missing monument in memory of the victims of the pogrom. Then a new monument to the victims by sculptor Branislav Ristić was unveiled in the yard of the cultural center.

In a speech at the cultural center, Bp. Teodosije emphasized that the 2004 pogrom “remains deeply etched in the Serbian collective memory as one of the saddest moments of our recent history.”

Photo: eparhija-prizren.com     

“Over those two days, our churches and monasteries, which had survived various wars and calamities for centuries, were ablaze. News of atrocities committed against our innocent people and clergy came from all sides; thus, we commemorate this anniversary by holding a memorial service and offering prayers to the Lord,” His Grace said.

***

Ten Years Since March Pogrom Against Serbs In KosovoIt is ten years today since a pogrom was committed against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) and its order-givers and organizers from Albanian political and paramilitary structures have still remained unnamed and unpunished.

“>In Serbia recounts:

In the wave of ethnic Albanian violence that broke out on March 17, 2004, a total of ten Serbs were killed and two went missing, and 11 Albanians died in clashes with members of international forces.

In only three days, 954 people were injured, including 143 Serbs and dozens of members of international forces who clashed with the Albanians in an attempt to protect the Serbs and their property. The attack left 72 UN vehicles damaged.

A total of 4,012 Serbs were expelled, six towns and nine villages were ethnically cleansed, and 935 Serb houses and 10 community facilities—schools, health centers, and post offices—were destroyed, burnt down or heavily damaged.

The religious and architectural heritage of the Serb people was a special target for the ethnic Albanians, resulting in 35 churches and monasteries, including 18 cultural monuments, being destroyed or burnt down.

Devič Monastery near Srbica and the dormitories of the Monastery of the Holy Archangels near Prizren were flattened; Our Lady of Ljeviš Cathedral from the 12th century and the Church of St George from the 16th century were burned down, and on the vault of the latter the ethnic Albanians wrote: Death to Serbs.

The Serb Orthodox Theological School in Prizren and the seat of the Diocese of Raška and Prizren were destroyed. Serb cemeteries were desecrated, including the marble tomb of St. Joanikije of Devič in Devič Monastery and the one of Emperor Dušan in the Monastery of the Holy Archangels.

More than 10,000 valuable frescoes, icons, chalices, vestments and other church relics, together with registries of Baptisms, marriages and deaths, which testified to a centuries-long Serb presence in the province, disappeared or were damaged.

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“Even when your hair is gray, I will carry you,” the prophet Isaiah tells us — no small comfort to the ever-growing slice of America that is in or nearing their silver years. With birthrates declining and life expectancy rising, our nation is the oldest it’s ever been. But are we ready for the challenges that are bound to come?

Many Catholics — and indeed, Christians of various stripes — pray that the “life of every human person, from conception to natural death, might be enshrined and protected in our laws.” Decades and dollars have sustained the advocacy around protecting the unborn child, a mission even more critical in these tumultuous years after the Dobbs decision. Yet save for a few high-profile cases — Terri Schiavo in the mid-2000s, or headlines about abuses in Canada’s euthanasia program — there has been less concerted effort around building up respect for the elderly facing their final years.

That will need to change.

The Baby Boomer generation — those born between 1946 and 1964 who for so long have directed the course of American culture and society — are now in their 60s and 70s. The way they face the end of life, and the choices we opt to prioritize or make available, will set the script for how we treat death, the labor of caretaking, and the value of human dignity into the future.

Advances in medicine and personal health means that Americans are living longer. This is a good thing. But as more and more seniors reach the age of needing a little assistance to handle the responsibilities of daily living, our nation could run into a problem of simple math: more seniors needing care than there are bodies to care for them.

To put this into context, at the turn of the millennium, those in the 60s and 70s made up 12.9% of the U.S. population. Today, they represent nearly one-fifth (19.4%) of all Americans, and declining birthrates means this shift will continue. The future of aging in America — with fewer younger workers providing for a growing number of seniors — will put increasing strain on our care infrastructure, and the programs and resources available to those needing to care for a loved one as they slow down.

Many seniors live healthy and active lives through much of their retirement years. But Father Time remains unbeaten. Eventually, our bodies and minds start to break down as we age — and with more seniors living longer, the need to compensate for those frailties becomes more acute. The blessing of having Grandma or Papa for more years is accompanied by an obligation to care for them in their less-active, less-agile years. While old age itself is not an illness, visiting an elderly relative — even just to spend time with them — can be considered a corporal work of mercy.

And an aging society will provide plenty of opportunities to engage in that kind of charity. The federal Administration on Aging estimates that 70% of adults 65 and over will need some kind of long-term care assistance, services, or support in their remaining years. This isn’t intensive medical treatment; just a helping hand with daily activities like preparing food, bathing, or using the bathroom. On average, seniors need this type of care for about three years, though for some the need can stretch out much longer.  

For many, family is the first and primary caretaker. Many seniors know they can rely on one or more of their children to attend to some of their more basic needs. But those needs often require more constant time and attention than adults with their own children to care for can devote. A report from the Pew Research Center found that more than half of adults in their 40s are members of the so-called “Sandwich Generation” — those who have an elderly parent while also raising at least one child at home.

And for other seniors, family isn’t a viable option. Broken relationships, alienated children, divorce; all can mean a fracturing of the safety net that family is meant to provide. And with more Americans opting out of parenthood altogether, an increasing share of adults will enter their senior years with thinner family trees, and fewer people to visit them in retirement, an assisted-living facility, or hospice care.

These trends will put increasing pressure on a social system that has not adjusted to the new realities of smaller families and longer lives. Caring for the elderly is inherently labor-intensive — it’s a one-to-one service that often requires some level of trust, even intimacy. Like child care, it’s a job that can’t become more “efficient” or “productive” without losing quality. A recent research paper found that when private equity firms took over a nursing facility, profits went up and patient outcomes — including mortality — took a turn for the worse.

In Japan, they are seeking to supplement their senior care with robots trained to change bedpans, remotely monitor vital signs, and — more speculatively — engage in conversation to provide a simulacrum of social engagement. According to the MIT Technology Review, the Japanese government has spent more than $300 million on research and development for these new devices, though they remain niche, rather than mainstream, devices so far.

One does not need to be a smartphone-avoiding Luddite to be skeptical of the idea of innovating our way out of the increasing demand for elder care. Technology could be used in some cases — like monitoring a senior’s apartment for falls — but can never be expected, or desired, to replace the human connection of a relationship with a caregiver. If anything, these advances mean our seniors need more in-person relationships and interactions, not fewer. 

Medicaid, for example, won’t pay for personal care for seniors. So for many Americans, the primary vehicle for most Americans to access care in their senior years is through long-term care insurance. Yet the market for such services has real problems; the number of options available to individuals fell from 125 two decades ago to under 15 more recently, according to the American Action Forum. Washington state recently rolled out a new state tax aimed at providing long-term care to residents, but it has been plagued with difficulties and it is unclear whether it will collect enough revenue to solve the looming problem.

The looming crisis of senior care will likely require touching some political third rails. Allowing Medicaid to pay for long-term care, for example, will dramatically increase its expenditures and worsen our nation’s fiscal picture, especially if we seek to raise wages for home health aides. As the whole economy has recently experienced, a world with declining birth rates means fewer workers and increased labor shortages — especially in labor-intensive jobs like child and elder care. It may be the case that the need for home health care aides and nursing home staff spurs America to revisit its immigration policy before too long. And any step toward broader public funding will almost certainly require higher taxes.

Solving these problems may sound like drudgery. Yet if we don’t tackle the financial side that makes aging a difficult problem to solve with compassion, less salutary “solutions” may present themselves. While none of the activists who push for access to physician-assisted suicide like to focus on the financial benefits, governments facing entitlement spending challenges may see a certain allure in being able to terminate an elderly citizen’s claims on medical spending under the false flag of “compassion.”

Even if an assisted suicide program could be implemented with perfect safeguards against abuse — an outlandish hypothetical, as examples from Canada and the Netherlands illustrate — it would quickly establish a social expectation that the elderly should choose the path of euthanasia rather than “be a burden” to their loved ones or society at large. 

The work of accompanying the elderly through their years of decreasing mobility, increasing dependence, and their final journey home is an opportunity to teach us all about the fragility and interconnectedness of human life. Those lessons can’t be learned if we seek to automate them away through “care robots” or render them illegible via euthanasia.

We can’t expect families to take care of aging relatives on their own; and many of our elderly community members don’t have family available to care for them. There are no easy answers. A world in which an increasingly large share of our population requires some long-term assistance requires us to evaluate tradeoffs and commitments.

But just as in our fight to protect the unborn, protecting the elderly in their frailty and old age means that any policy solution — and the cultural change of mentality that must accompany it — has to remember the importance of human relationships before anything else. 

No social safety net program or pregnancy resource center alone is enough to help the mom contemplating abortion — we need a web of support and a cultural recognition of the value of that growing fetus. Similarly, our politics needs a greater recognition of the challenges our aging population lays ahead of us, and a commitment to treating our elders with respect.

Even if this means uncomfortable political choices in the short run, such as increasing immigration or raising taxes, the alternatives are “solutions” that threaten to make us all a little less human.

Not much has been recorded about the life of St. Herbert. He was a hermit in England and a close friend of St. Cuthbert. Herbert was a priest, and lived as a recluse on an island in Lake Derwentwater, England. The island is now called St. Herbert’s, in his honor.

St. Herbert asked to die on the same day as St. Cuthbert, and God granted him that request.

    

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!

We have entered the grace-filled time of the Holy Forty Days, Great Lent. The goal of the fast consists in helping a person rise above mundane life to feel the presence of divine grace, to feel that each of us, regardless of our human weakness, has the opportunity in prayer and through prayer to enter into real contact with God.

Someone might say: What does food have to do with that? Perhaps it’s possible to attain all this without restrictions on food—through books, or contemplation? Well, the two-thousand-year experience of the Church (and this experience is based on the example of our Lord and Savior) testifies to the necessity of restrictions on food, and self-restrictions in general. After all, the fast requires us to restrict ourselves not only in food, but also in various activities that can harm a person’s spiritual state.

For example, we need to restrict our participation in entertainment events, perhaps from excessive watching of television programs, especially those that are oriented toward fun, laughter, or pleasure. Again, the worldly man will say, “Why is all this necessary?” And the answer is: Without self-restriction, a person can have no spiritual or even intellectual growth.

Speaking of intellectual growth, we need to look at the biographies of many scholars—how much they remind us of the biographies of spiritual ascetics! These people renounced everything and immersed themselves entirely in the sciences, becoming ascetics of their work. It is such people who “light the spark”, and attain to things that others cannot. Therefore, only through enormous strength of will, through very strict abstinence, does a person truly reach the heights.

Well, and what about sports? Can anyone become a champion if he doesn’t limit himself in anything? Can you win a competition if you eat, party, rest, and sleep? Never! Any victory in sports demands enormous self-restraint.

Then what can we say about a person’s spiritual victory over himself? About the possibility of getting closer to God, of feeling His grace? Can this movement be made without physical podvig? Of course not! Because man is not only spiritual; he also possesses a physical body. Therefore, self-restriction in food, entertainment, and the way he spends his time is a way and means for exalting the human soul.

This is not some sort of self-flagellation, as unbelievers sometimes say. “Well, why are you torturing yourselves? Why not eat a little sausage at breakfast? Or drink a little milk? What stupidity!” But in fact, the path to the heights lies through these trifles. After all, when a person restricts himself in the small, he gains the ability and opportunity to limit himself in the great.

And what could be greater for a person than salvation of the soul? What could be more excellent than a meeting with God? A meeting not only beyond the grave, but also in our lifetime—through the joyful experience of Divine Liturgy, through tears of compunction when grace touches the heart, through Paschal joy. It is not possible to attain this grace and joy without effort. And that means that efforts are necessary, including restricting ourselves in food, drink, and our manner of life in general.

For this reason, we have Great Lent, so that through self-restriction, we might discover the opportunity to see the Lord, to have contact with sanctity, and to feel His grace. This means that the fast is not a time of sadness, not a time of great psychological stress, or simply for the sake of overcoming the desire to eat non-fasting foods. The fast should reveal to us what it means for us to strive towards the Lord.

And if during this movement toward God we limit ourselves so insignificantly, by foregoing one type of food, then what kind of podvig is that? The minimum! But it is amazing how not everyone is capable of even this minimal asceticism. The Church therefore calls each of the faithful to relate very seriously to the time of holy Great Lent.

Truly, we should refrain from foods, but not only from foods. We should likewise refrain from passing time idly, from everything that can distract us from the most important thing and bring a certain dissonance into the general state of our soul.

We should arrange our days so that prayer would occupy more time in them than usual. It is very important to immerse ourselves in the reading of Holy Scripture. Unfortunately, few Orthodox Christians read Holy Scripture every day. But this is so very important, first of all in order to enable us to grow in the faith, to familiarize ourselves as much as possible with God. But on the other hand, the words of Holy Scripture carry grace, and they do not only teach us, but also create a special inner state of the soul, which enables us to assimilate everything that the Scripture brings to those who read it. In other words, the time of the fast is a time of spiritual concentration, prayer, reading Holy Scripture, and of course, it is a time of abstinence. But all of this must be done with joy; I would even say, with a smile.

We are walking towards the Lord, to meet the Bright Resurrection of Christ, and we bring such a small, microscopic sacrifice in the form of not drinking milk or eating meat. So let us make an effort to bring this small, microscopic sacrifice to the Lord, and spend this fast in abstinence and prayer, going more often to church than usual, confessing our sins, and receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

And may the Lord help us precisely this way—in peace of soul, in joy, as God’s word teaches us, and not in sorrow, or furrowed brow—to dedicate the Holy Forty Days to prayer and glorifying the Lord. And we believe that in response to our modest gift, and our modest efforts, the Lord will give us His grace, peace of soul, and health to those who especially need it. I congratulate all of you, my dear ones, on entering upon the time of the Holy Forty Days! Amen!

The Supreme Court rejected without comment this week an Indiana Catholic husband and wife’s petition over a dispute involving custody of their transgender-identifying son.

Mary and Jeremy Cox refused to accept their son’s self-declared female identity in 2019 and instead sought therapy to address what they saw as underlying mental health concerns. The government subsequently removed their son from their home, placing him in another home that “affirmed” his transgender beliefs.

The state government eventually dropped its abuse allegations against the couple, though it ultimately refused to return him to their custody, claiming that the child had developed an eating disorder due to the dispute. Multiple court decisions upheld the state’s order.

The couple, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court last month. On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, turning down the Coxes’ petition without comment.

The Coxes’ child has turned 18 since the dispute began, though the Coxes argued in their appeal that the state’s decision should still be challenged in part because they have other children at home and were “gravely concerned that Indiana will make similar claims and allegations” regarding those children.

In a statement provided to CNA on Tuesday via Becket, the Coxes said that “no other loving parents should have to endure what we did.”

“The pain of having our son taken from our home and kept from our care because of our beliefs will stay with us forever,” the parents said.

“We can’t change the past, but we will continue to fight for a future where parents of faith can raise their children without fear of state officials knocking on their doors.”

Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement that Indiana’s handling of the case “was a shocking attack on parental rights.”

“Loving parents should not lose custody of their children because they disagree with the state about gender,” she said.

Though the justices declined to hear the case, Windham said Becket was “confident that the Supreme Court will ultimately protect this basic right and ensure that parents can raise their children consistent with their religious beliefs.”

Windham had in February described Indiana’s conduct as “an outrage to the law, parental rights, and basic human decency.”

“If the Supreme Court doesn’t take this case,” she said last month, “how many times will this happen to other families?”