Tag: Christianity

Photo: anisima.ru     

Today [last Tuesday, February 8] the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of St. Xenia of PetersburgSt. Xenia of Petersburg

“>St. Xenia of Petersburg. We know her Life well. But in this post I would like to talk with you about something else. I would like to talk about whether a Christian has the right to evaluate the significance of saints according to their nationality.

In Holy Scripture it is written very plainly that in the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no separation into nations, races, or ethnicity. The Savior teaches us that for God, the only significant thing is the state of a person’s heart. Then let’s think: Can a any organization that “decanonizes” saints because of their nationality be called a “Church”? After all, we are not talking here about faith, but about simple human logic, about what we call common sense.

Should we get rid of the English language in connection with the anti-human colonial politics that Great Britain conducted over the course of many years? Should we ban the music of Bach, Beethoven, Straus, or Brahms, just because they belonged to the same nation as Hitler? Or perhaps for the same reason, we should burn the books of Kant, Hegel, Shelling, Fichte, and forget about the poetry of Goethe and Shiller? Then let’s ban the books of Pablo Neruda and Gabriel Mistral, because they were born in the same country as Pinochet.

We can go on and on with the analogies. Amognst any people or nation we can find worthy examples for emulation, just as we can find the opposite. That certain “activists” have begun to speculate on modern events, trying with this to blacken the memory of Orthodox saints who are venerated throughout the whole world, speaks not only of their total misunderstanding of Christian teaching, but also of their low intellectual level. But what is significantly worse is that they are trying to force their primitive way of thinking upon other people, conducting absurd propaganda.

Franz Wright (1953-2015), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Catholic convert, struggled with addiction and depression. He wrote movingly of isolation, illness, and religious transcendence.

His work includes the poetry collections “God’s Silence” (2006); “Wheeling Motel” (2009); “Kindertotenwald” (2011); and “F” (2013). He won the Pulitzer in 2004 for “Walking to Martha’s Vineyard” (2001).

Perhaps most movingly, he never left his watch. Fidelity to an artistic vocation, he demonstrated, is not for the faint of heart.

Wright was born in Vienna, Austria, to the poet James Wright and his wife, Liberty (now Kovacs), an American-born daughter of Greek immigrants who later became a nurse. The elder Wright suffered from alcoholism and manic-depression, and the marriage was tempestuous. As a child Wright was exposed through his father to such literary luminaries as Theodore Roethke, Saul Bellow, and Robert Bly. His parents divorced when he was 8. His mother remarried a man who Wright claimed was physically abusive.

He began writing as an adolescent. In a 2006 interview with Image Journal, he told of his first poem: “In the summer my mother and stepfather and I used to go to Clear Lake, California, up above Napa Valley. I woke up early one morning and had a strange feeling. I took a walk around dawn out into a walnut orchard, and I sat down. This ecstasy came over me, and I started to write. I ended up writing a seven-line poem. … It was clear to me that I had to have this sensation again. I had never felt anything like this. … From that day I never stopped being obsessed with this sense that I had a calling to do this. There was something mystical about it, like a religious calling. Everything else would have to go. It was a kind of dread I felt. I thought I could see my whole future. I would probably have to give up any idea of having a normal life.”

He sent the seven lines to his father. “You’re a poet,” James Wright replied. “Welcome to hell.”

As an adult, Wright taught poetry at various universities, held down jobs in mental health clinics, and worked as a volunteer to grieving children. He was also hospitalized himself on several occasions for depression and alcoholism.

In 1999, he married the American translator Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright. He also achieved sobriety that year and converted to Roman Catholicism.

Wright deeply admired Bashō, the 17th-century haiku master. “The simplest things are very difficult to do in writing,” he once noted. “Just to write very simply and clearly is probably the hardest thing to do in writing.”

Critic Helen Vender observed in the New York Review of Books, “Wright’s scale of experience … runs from the homicidal to the ecstatic.”

Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller wrote that “Kindertotenwald” [loosely translated as “forest of dead children”] is “ultimately about joy and grace and the possibility of redemption, about coming out whole on the other side of emotional catastrophe.”

Novelist Denis Johnson said of Wright’s book “Entry in an Unknown Hand”: “These poems break me, they’re like tiny jewels shaped by blunt, ruined fingers — miraculous gifts.”

In an interview with American poet and critic Ernest Hilbert entitled “The Secret Glory” and published in 2006, Wright was asked, “Must one feel extremes of pain or love to create authentic poetry, or is stylistic capacity enough?”

He responded, “You must have both, clearly. And have them to a terrible, excruciating, and obsessive degree.”

“Religion seems to be central to your writing,” Hilbert continued. “Can you say a few words about how religion has affected your life and your view of the world?”

“My religious faith is very real and literal, almost to a childlike degree — though with my ancient skepticism and dread of abandonment thrown in — and I can only say it has made it possible for me to go on living. I would not have been able to go on living otherwise.”

Of winning the Pulitzer, Wright said, “I consider it a great honor, and it still amazes me, and I think it will always amaze me.” His father James Wright also won the Pulitzer for poetry, making them the only parent-child pair to have done so in the history of the prize.

At the same time, he found fame to be a heavy cross. “What advice would you give young poets?” he was asked by Image Journal.

“My first impulse is always to say, ‘Do something else,’ ” he replied. “Seriously, what kept me going as a young person was love. Not ambition, but love. … If your motive is pure, if your motive is love for this thing, inspiration will find you. … And success will come, though we know there are great exceptions to this. We know that success didn’t come to Emily Dickinson or Van Gogh. But maybe it did. Maybe the ultimate success came to them. Maybe their joy would have been diluted by worldly success. Mine has been. It’s a disaster. You don’t know this until it happens, and then it’s too late. You can never go back. You can never get your private, anonymous love back.”

Wright died of cancer at his home in Waltham, Massachusetts, on May 14, 2015. He was 62.

“Soon, soon,” he wrote in “Nude with Handgun and Rosary,” “between one instant and the next, you will be well.”

Mt. Athos, February 9, 2024

Photo: orthodoxia.info     

Another statement has come from the Holy Mountain concerning the controversy over the Greek government’s plans to legalize gay marriage and adoption by gay couples.

In December, the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos, which consists of one representative of each of the 20 ruling monasteries, issued a statement, condemning the state’s plans.

And today, an emergency session of the Double Assembly was held, uniting the 20 abbots with the Sacred Community, to address the same issue, reports Romfea.

While expressing their love for everybody, the Athonites also condemn the state’s plans as destructive for all of mankind. “Not only the Gospel and Greek society are affected. All of creation is being deconstructed,” the Double Assembly writes.

Read the full statement below:

On the occasion of the submission of the bill “Equality in Civil Marriage. Amendment of the Civil Code and Other Provisions” for voting by the Greek Parliament, the 40 Abbots and Representatives of the Holy Monasteries of Mount Athos convened in Karyes today, 2/8/2024, due to the great and particular seriousness of the subject, decided to address this announcement to every well-intentioned person and to stand in solidarity with the Church’s anxiety and struggle to protect the core of human life.

The legislation, as the bill proposes, while wanting to ensure the principle of equality through the institution of “marriage” between persons of the same sex and even protection from discrimination, violates fundamental principles of human existence and kills the possibility of life and the natural development of the child.

Not only the human family is dissolved, but the whole of human existence.

How does life work? Each of us comes from a mother and a father, according to Christ’s response: Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? (Mt. 19:4).

The institution of “marriage” between persons of the same sex is a reversal of Christian marriage and the institution of the family and has been rejected by the entire ecclesiastical tradition and is treated with repentance, which is a change of life.

Also, the embryo is carried for nine months and is born. The newborn human is the most vulnerable newborn of all of creation. It can’t do anything.

If his mother doesn’t care for him, doesn’t nurse him, he dies… God gives the responsibility to the parents to cooperate in the baby’s formation and thus become co-creators with God.

If the newborn turns its gaze towards his mother wanting to be nursed, and someone else is in her place, it confuses the information – it gets distorted, and is dishonored.

The duty of respect to a new creature requires sacrifice for it to be able to develop normally, to enjoy its life. There is no other way for human union and development.

After nine months, he is born into a broader womb, which is the family environment, and another creation of the human, the child, begins within the family.

He knows his mother as the woman who nurses him and nourishes him with her milk and takes care of him.

He knows his father as the man who loves him and takes care of him in his own way. He gets spiritual and physical strength from the mutual respect of his father and mother in order to move on to the second phase which passes into childhood, enters adolescence, moves freely within society and accepts the guidance of his culture and place.

God creates man to live, not to die; not to die in the womb of his mother, nor in the womb of childhood, nor in the womb of history.

He participates in the miracle of life, to live and ascend to eternal life.

And this, by the grace of the Spirit, is what the Church does, through which “the whole is renewed and divinized.”

And this constitutes the final womb, which shapes the man and prepares him to be born into the realm of the new polity, into the “tabernacles” of the beloved and the desired freedom of the future age.

This is the purpose and reason for which God created the world and man.

Those who were liberated and born beyond the womb of history, that is, in the grace of eternal life, exist, pray, and hold us all in life, and constitute the North Star to which humanity is directed.

The attempted hubris, in the original sense of the word, constitutes a denial of human existence, a destruction of the foundations of the edifice of humanity.

Not only the Gospel and Greek society are affected. All of creation is being deconstructed.

Whether you’re a believer or an unbeliever, you’ll be born in the same way. When you alter these, you decide on the slow but certain death of humanity.

When a man and woman marry in the Church, they receive the blessing of the Church and wishes for many children and a participation in creation.

The true character of marriage is vividly revealed with the presence of Christ at the wedding in Cana because this is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church, according to the Apostle Paul.

This “marriage” being promoted today leads to a dead end.

Creatures are being prepared wounded, disabled. Respect human nature.

What was born from its mother’s womb, regardless of race, language, and faith, needs to be nursed by its mother.

These thoughts are not the product of imagination but are based on Scripture and the Apostles, on Tradition and the decisions of the Fathers, who established terms for the Orthodox faith and the sacred canons that define the boundaries within which all its members must move.

In particular, the Apostle Paul is clear when he emphatically states: Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

At the same time, the Church continues its mission, shepherds, and heals, so that all the faithful may live in a community with Christ and their brothers, distinguished by selfless love and brotherhood.

God loves us all, the righteous and the unrighteous, saints and sinners. The Church does the same, excluding no one, as is evident throughout the history of ecclesiastical life and human weaknesses.

Love reigns. It is a shame for those who make these bills and consider this development natural.

We encourage and praise those who prefer the voice of conscience over any party discipline and are companions in their struggle.

However, there is the health of the life of the human body that rejects all these elements that attempt to alter the true existence of man.

There is One Who directs everything—He Who made the world and man to live in eternity and to exist. He exists and protects us, appearing as weak and nonexistent.

All those who want to alter life will crash into Him.

Perhaps they don’t realize that all this haste and insistence on passing the bill reveals weakness and at the expense of the people they supposedly want to protect.

It is only out of respect for these people that we express and emphatically emphasize the principles of life.

It is a great crime. They violate human nature because, in essence, they stop natural development and unknowingly destroy man.

But there is One Who created everything out of love and wisdom and bypasses our weaknesses and leads everything to a good end.

All Representatives and Abbots of the 20 Holy and Venerable Monasteries of Mount Athos in the emergency Double Assembly.

Both the Greek Holy Synod against gay marriage and gay adoptionThe Holy Synod of the Church of Greece came out with a statement today addressing the ongoing scandal surrounding the possibility of legalized gay marriage in Greece.

“>Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church and the expanded Greek hierarchs unanimously condemn gay marriage and adoptionThe hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Greece met in an extraordinary session today, with the sole item on the agenda being the state’s intention to legalize gay marriage and adoption by gay couples.”>Council of Bishops have issued condemnatory statements. State authorities have expressed their intention to move ahead with their plans, despite the voice of the Church.

140 Greek Orthodox associations against the gay marriage billThe signatory associations include Orthodox missionary brotherhoods, parenting associations, student unions, scientific associations, and many more.

“>Earlier this month, 140 Greek Orthodox associations also united in their opposition to the relevant bill.

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The Catholic prayer app Hallow announced that its first-ever Super Bowl commercial will air during the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Feb. 11.

“Our goal at Hallow is to try to help as many people as possible, especially those who have most fallen away, to pray and build a real relationship with God,” Alex Jones, co-founder and CEO of Hallow, told CNA in an interview.

He shared that the 30-second commercial is “just a simple invitation to pray together.”

“Let’s all just take 30 seconds during the Super Bowl, during the Lord’s day, to give thanks to God together. That’s really all Hallow is about, just spending time with God, just letting Christ into our hearts. It’s an honor to be able to use the Super Bowl, for the first time ever, as an opportunity for us all to pray.”

The ad will feature Catholic actors Mark Wahlberg, who recently starred in “Father Stu,” and Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as Jesus in “The Chosen.” The teaser of the commercial shows both in a church — one blessing himself with holy water, the other receiving ashes on his forehead.

“Jonathan and Mark are two of our closest and longest-term partners. Both have done an incredible job reaching out to people and inviting them into prayer over the past couple years,” Jones said. “We’ve seen their work change thousands of people’s lives — people who have fallen away for years but see an invitation from Mark or Jonathan and are brought back into their faith for the first time.”

This year, the Super Bowl takes place three days before the beginning of Lent. Jones explained that when he and his team realized this, they were “thrilled.”

“When we found out the Super Bowl was going to fall on the Sunday immediately before Ash Wednesday, which only happens once every 10 years or so, we were thrilled at the idea of using it as an opportunity to invite people into prayer, especially those who are the hardest to reach, folks who might never otherwise have encountered prayer,” he said.

The commercial is set to air shortly before halftime and will air in 15 markets, FoxNews reported.

Jones hopes that the ad “reaches out to someone who maybe hasn’t prayed in a long time. That it might just allow someone somewhere an opportunity to let God into their hearts for the first time.”

He added: “If we can reach out to just one person like that — someone in a tough place, someone lost — and help them to begin a journey back to God, then yes, it will have been worth it.”

Here’s the teaser:

Washington, D.C., February 9, 2024

Photo: archons.org     

It was U.S. policy, beginning under President Trump, to destroy the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, says the Church’s lawyer.

Robert Amsterdam of the D.C.-based AMSTERDAM & PARTNERS LLP, shocked by the Ukrainian state’s attempts to ban and destroy the Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church receiving pro bono defense from international law firmThe canonical Ukrainian Orthodox has enlisted the help of a major international law firm to protect its rights.

“>is providing the Church with pro bono defense. New site and video: Save the UOC (+VIDEO)A new website entirely dedicated to the tragedy of the persecution of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine was launched this week, together with a short film.”>Last month, the firm launched a site specifically dedicated to the protection of the Church.

In an interview published yesterday, Amsterdam reveals that his team recently learned from the Assistant Secretary of State under Trump that the destruction of the UOC was a point of U.S. policy, which involved former Ukrainian President Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Asked about the attitude towards Patriarch Bartholomew in America and what Americans think about the Ukrainian ecclesiastical conflict against the background of the war, Amsterdam said:

Well firstly, nobody in the United States knows him, other than people in the State Department. He, unfortunately, has allowed himself to be an instrument of a U.S. policy.

We learned last week from the Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Destro—he was Assistant Secretary under Trump—that it was U.S. policy to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox. I mean, absolutely shocking, this behavior…

So, again, this information came to us last week. We need to understand it; we need to ask the American Congress to investigate it. It explains a lot of the black PR about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that has gone out. Because nobody is spreading this better, spreading this propaganda, than, unfortunately, the United States at times.

And Patriarch Bartholomew and President Poroshenko and Secretary of State Pompeo negotiated these dramatic changes in the life of the Church in Ukraine. And they’ve been heavily criticized for it.

And again, I am going to just strongly say that the state needs to stay out of the spiritual realm. And this behavior from the United States is unconstitutional and illegal. The behavior of Poroshenko in how he instrumentalized the Church for his political campaign is unconstitutional, under the Ukrainian constitution, of course.

Secretary Pompeo openly acknowledges U.S pressure on Churches to recognize Ukrainian schismaticsOrthoChristian has written of the U.S’s role in creating and propagandizing the OCU many times, and OCU hierarchs have even openly spoken about it at times. Pro-Constantinople and pro-schismatic hierarchs and media outlets have routinely dismissed such statements and reports as “Russian propaganda.”

“>In January 2021, Secretary of State Pompeo openly acknowledged the U.S.’s role in pressuring Churches to recognize the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” created by the U.S.-Ukraine-Constantinople specifically to replace the Church that had already existed in Ukraine for 1,000 years.

Ukrainian diplomat admits U.S.’s role in creating schismatic OCUThe United States considers the creation of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) as its own achievement, acknowledges the former Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.

“>In May 2021, the former Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. admitted that the U.S. counts the creation of the OCU as its own achievement.

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A Florida priest and Grammy-winning recording artist has been placed on administrative leave due to alleged sexual misconduct with a minor a decade ago.

Father Jerome Kaywell, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda, Florida, has been removed from his duties pending an investigation, according to a Jan. 26 letter to parishioners by Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida.

The bishop said the Diocese of Venice had received notice from an unspecified law firm that the popular priest had allegedly engaged in misconduct “with someone who was a minor at the time … in the Winter of 2013/2014.

“Father Kaywell denies that the allegation is true and maintains he is innocent,” said Bishop Dewane in his letter. He urged that “anyone who believes that he or she has been the victim of sexual misconduct by someone serving in ministry for the Diocese of Venice, or any organization, should contact law enforcement officials.”

Bishop Dewane also listed the telephone number of the diocesan victim assistance coordinator: (941) 416-6114.

According to several media interviews between 2004 and 2007, Father Kaywell, a Florida native, had discerned early in life a religious vocation, inquiring with the Maryknoll Fathers at age 12 and entering a Franciscan monastery at age 17. Shortly after releasing his first album in 1975 while he was a seminary musical director, he left religious life to perform in a band with his brother and later moved to California, where he was involved in youth ministry and professional songwriting for advertising and television for more than a decade.

In 1984, the future Father Kaywell entered the seminary and was subsequently diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He sought alternative therapies (which brought him into contact with actors Gilda Radner, who died in 1989 after a long battle with ovarian cancer, and her husband, Gene Wilder), and managed to record the 1986 Grammy-winning gospel album “Let My People Go” with The Winans.

With his cancer in remission, he resumed his priesthood studies in 1989 and was ordained in 1991. Two years later, Father Kaywell began producing benefit concerts and touring with his music.

In 1996, he released the album “Above the Clouds: Heavenly Music from Father Jerry” and unveiled his 2020 album, “Very Jerry: Intimate, Self-Revealing Songs” in a November 2020 Facebook post.

Father Kaywell’s singles include “The Ballad of St. Thérèse” and “Lullaby of the Light (for Evia),” the latter of which featured singer Leslie Smith. Both songs debuted in 2020.

Karen Barry Schwarz, diocesan director of communications, told OSV News that “an independent investigator” has been hired to look into the allegations, and that as a matter of policy the diocese does not offer comment “when there’s an ongoing investigation.”

She also said that “as a matter of course, we always issue a letter to the state attorney in the county in which an allegation is made,” which in this case is Charlotte County, Florida.

Englewood, New Jersey, February 9, 2024

Photo: antiochian.org     

The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America announced yesterday the launch of its new online sacred music library.

This “more powerful resource for choirs, chanters and directors to find music” was in development for several years.

“Prayerfully, everyone sought guidance, wisdom and strength from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this monumental task. The new library is user-friendly and intuitive with a variety of search paths to gain results,” said Mareena Boosamra Ball, chairwoman of the Department of Sacred Music.

The library contains more than 2,500 pieces of music, each with detailed descriptions of composers and musical styles. Some also include MIDI or MP3 files.

The new sacred music library includes texts for Vespers, Orthros, and Liturgy, the Sacraments, the Octoechos, the Menaion, the Lenten Triodion, the Pentecostarion, and much more.

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Speakers at this year’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., highlighted the joy and sacrifice of the Christian life, with keynote speaker Bishop William Byrne calling the faithful to deeper participation in the sacraments and imitation of the Blessed Mother in living a life of “ecstatic praise.”

The breakfast, which took place on Feb. 8, has been held annually since 2004 and has been attended by such leaders as President George Bush and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

This year, the breakfast was attended by over 1,000 faithful. Among them were several bishops and Catholic leaders, such as Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, and Tim Glemkowski, Catholic author and executive director of National Eucharistic Congress. Also in attendance were several Catholic members of Congress including Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, as well as Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.

The event was broadcast live by EWTN.

You will never get bored serving Christ

The morning began with a greeting from Pope Francis via a video message from Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., and the Divine Mercy Chaplet led by two members of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy.

Helen Alvaré, a Catholic, pro-life scholar and speaker, was given this year’s Christifideles Laici Award in recognition of her “fidelity to the Church” and “exemplary selfless and steadfast service in the Lord’s vineyard.”

Alvaré gave an energetic and humorous acceptance speech that had many attendees doubling over in laughter despite the early hour. She listed many of her top bits of wisdom picked up during her service to the Church, saying: “You will never, ever … get bored in the service of Christ.”

“It does not matter how many fancy degrees you have, at some point you will be at Costco at the opening bell, picking up sandwiches for a church lunch,” she joked.

“No other path comes close to being this bottomless and fascinating,” she said.

“At some point, you will realize that God has taken every shred of talent you possess and put it to work,” she went on. “Do not ask God why you have such weird talent combos. Just go with it. God apparently has an amazingly more interesting future for you than you have for yourself.”

The Fauci problem

Byrne, the bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts, spoke on the importance of the upcoming National Eucharistic Congress and the need for greater participation in the Christian life, most especially through the sacraments of Communion and penance.

Quoting former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who recently said that the Catholic faith is “almost like a pro forma thing that I don’t really need to do,” Byrne said that this belief “succinctly articulates the voice of a majority of Americans who identify as Catholic but do not recognize the beauty and the power of their baptism.”

“From that gift of the incorporation into the body of Christ comes a duty to live in right relationship with our creator and redeemer,” he explained. “Living in right relationship with God, as we all know, is the only way to joy. ‘Be it done to me according to your word’ — these seven words began to untie and unravel the knot that was tied at Eden, the knot of self-sufficiency that imprisons us.”

Byrne said that the “ecstatic joy” with which the Blessed Virgin Mary accepted and received Christ at the Incarnation is a model for Christians to follow today.

“Our Lady’s response to the request of the angel Gabriel reversed the course of human history. Obedience, trust, docility — these became the force that foiled and foils the ancient foe.”

Faith and sacrifice

Bishop Wilfred Anagbe, whose Nigerian Makurdi Diocese has been the target of almost daily attacks, shared with the crowd a testimony of the faith and sacrifice of the persecuted Church in his country, where 4,998 Christians were killed for their faith in 2023 alone.

Highlighting the worsening bloodshed in his country, Anagbe mentioned the recent Christmas terrorist attacks that left more than 200 Nigerian Christians dead.

“Nigeria has become a killing field, a field that is sadly fettered with the blood of the martyrs,” Anagbe said.

“I share this with you so that the world may know that in spite of all of this, Nigerian seminaries and churches are full,” Anagbe went on.

“Christian faith is growing in spite of the terrorists, or maybe because of them,” he said.

Bishop Wilfred Anagbe says that in spite of the terrorist attacks in Nigeria or perhaps “because of” them, the churches and seminaries are full. He urges the faithful to pray for Nigeria. pic.twitter.com/kYfoBLv2AC

— Lauretta Brown (@LaurettaBrown6) February 8, 2024

Anagbe asked the U.S. faithful to “never forget your brothers and sisters in Nigeria” and to “pray for us as we pray for you.” Moved by his testimony, the crowd gave the Nigerian bishop a standing ovation for his courageous witness to the faith.

Joy and wonder of the faith

Several Catholic groups also had booths open at the breakfast to share their missions and apostolates with those gathered. Groups present included The Pontifical Missions Society, the Faithful Citizenship Institute, and The Heritage Foundation as well as a few Catholic schools, including Belmont Abbey College and Benedictine College.

Also present were several members of the National Shroud of Turin Exhibit, who held a press conference after the breakfast in which they announced plans to open a new permanent exhibit soon in Washington, D.C.

Nora Creech, an expert on the Shroud of Turin, explained that their efforts to bring renewed attention to the Shroud of Turin are based on a desire to debunk a controversial radiocarbon study by the British Museum that alleged the relic was a medieval fraud. Creech said that by educating others on the authenticity of the shroud they hope to help people encounter Christ and the joy and wonder of the faith.

“We have two generations that haven’t heard about the shroud because of this radiocarbon dating,” she said. “When I go in parishes and give talks, young people come up to me and they have tears in their eyes, and they say: ‘Why has nobody ever told me this before? Why is it that the Gospel is revealed here in this linen cloth, and this is the first time I’m hearing about it?’”

“So,” she went on, “we are all just passionate about sharing with this generation that they can come to know Jesus, they can know that the Gospels are true by studying his holy shroud.”

Bolshoy Klimetsk Island, Karelia, Russia, February 9, 2024

Photo: eparhia10.ru     

In June 2022, remains were found at the Holy Trinity-Klimetsk Monastery on Bolshoy Klimetsk Island in the Russian Republic of Karelia.

After in-depth study, it was determined that they belong to St. Jonah of Klimetsk, an ascetic saint of the 15th–16th century who founded the monastery. And based on a report from His Eminence Metropolitan Konstantin of Petrozavodsk and Karelia, the remains were blessed to be venerated as holy relics by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow last month, reports the Diocese of Petrozavodsk.

A diocesan feast of the uncovering of his relics was also established for June 16/29.

The process of finding and verifying the relics of St. Jonah began in August 2020, when Met. Konstantin established a commission for that purpose. The excavation, which lasted a day and a half, began with a moleben before the start of any good work and a prayer to St. Jonah.

Eventually, the remains of an old chapel that once stood over the grave of St. Jonah were uncovered, and then the remains of the saint.

“The remains, which had lain in the ground for 486 years, were brought to the surface with care and reverence, then examined and described by a forensic expert and placed in wooden ark boxes specially prepared for this purpose.”

Half of St. Jonah’s relics were found on June 29, 2022, and the other half on August 25.

Upon completion of the archaeological work, architectural-historical, anthropological, isotopic and medical-forensic studies were carried out, by which it was established that the remains reliably belong to St. Jonah (†1534).

***

Photo: oca.org Venerable Jonah the Abbot of KlimetzkSaint Jonah of Klimetzk, in the world John, became a monk, and founded the Klimetzk Trinity Monastery in fulfillment of a vow.

“>St. Jonah of Klimetsk, in the world John, became a monk, and founded the Klimetsk Trinity Monastery in fulfillment of a vow.

In 1490 he had been caught by a storm on Lake Onega. When there was no hope for survival, John cried out to the Lord, entreating Him to preserve his life so he might repent and serve God. The boat was thrown onto a sandbar by the waves. There he heard the voice of the Lord commanding him to found a monastery in honor of the Life-Creating Trinity.

He miraculously discovered a holy icon on a juniper tree. The saint fulfilled the will of the Lord and built a monastery with two churches, one dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity and the other in honor of St. Nicholas, protector of those who sail and those who travel.

Refusing the rank of igumen, St. Jonah remained a simple monk at the monastery. He died on June 6, 1534. A church was built over his relics, and was dedicated to Sts. Zachariah and Elizabeth.

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Lev. 13:1-2, 44-46 / Ps. 32:1-2, 5, 11 / 1 Cor. 10:31-11:1 / Mk. 1:40-45

In the Old Testament, leprosy is depicted as punishment for disobedience of God’s commands (see Numbers 12:12-15; 2 Kings 5:27; 15:5).

Considered “unclean” — unfit to worship or live with the Israelites, lepers are considered “stillborn,” the living dead (see Numbers 12:12). Indeed, the requirements imposed on lepers in today’s First Reading — rent garments, shaven head, covered beard — are signs of death, penance and mourning (see Leviticus 10:6; Ezekiel 24:17).

So there’s more to the story in today’s Gospel than a miraculous healing.

When Elisha, invoking God’s name, healed the leper, Naaman, it proved there was a prophet in Israel (see 2 Kings 5:8).

Today’s healing reveals Jesus as far more than a great prophet — he is God visiting his people (see Luke 7:16).

Only God can cure leprosy and cleanse from sin (see 2 Kings 5:7); and only God has the power to bring about what he wills (see Isaiah 55:11; Wisdom 12:18).

The Gospel scene has an almost sacramental quality about it. Jesus stretches out his hand — as God, by his outstretched arm, performed mighty deeds to save the Israelites (see Exodus 14:6; Acts 4:30). His ritual sign is accompanied by a divine word (“Be made clean”). And, like God’s word in creation (“Let there be”), Jesus’ word “does” what he commands (see Psalm 33:9).

The same thing happens when we show ourselves to the priest in the sacrament of penance. On our knees like the leper, we confess our sins to the Lord, as we sing in today’s Psalm.

And through the outstretched arm and divine word spoken by his priest, the Lord takes away the guilt of our sin.

Like the leper we should rejoice in the Lord and spread the good news of his mercy.

We should testify to our healing by living changed lives. As Paul says in today’s Epistle, we should do even the littlest things for the glory of God and that others may be saved.