Tag: Christianity

Life After Escape: The Valaam Monk and American Missionary Archimandrite Dimitry (Egorov)This article talks about the life of Nikolai Ivanovich Egorov, the future Archimandrite Dmitry, who escaped the Solovki camps and entered Valaam Monastery as a novice in the 1930s. Later, he founded several sketes in America, where he reposed in 1992.

“>Part 1

This article talks about the life of Nikolai Ivanovich Egorov, the future Archimandrite Dmitry, who escaped the Solovki camps and entered Valaam Monastery as a novice in the 1930s. Later, he founded several sketes in America, where he reposed in 1992.

The Kazan Icon of the Mother of God Skete in Santa Rosa     

According to the recollections of his contemporaries, he lived a life that was beyond modest, meek, and humble; he was considered a fool for Christ during his lifetime—not everyone could endure the rigor of his life and the height of his spiritual feats.

For example, riding on public transportation, the Elder could suddenly raise his hands to Heaven and start praying loudly, or get down on his knees on the street. Fr. Dimitry also brought a Ukrainian refugee to the skete who was suffering from schizophrenia and demonic possession. During periods of remission, he was calm and prayed and did obedience along with everyone else, but during attacks, he would grab a knife or an axe and run after Fr. Dimitry. After being treated in a clinic, Fr. Dimitry would invariably let the unfortunate man back in, somehow managing to pacify him. One novice who left the skete, an American, recalls how the possessed man rushed at him with a machete when he was about to ring the bells.

Another example comes from a carpenter from San Francisco who would visit the skete every week. He decided to take the construction of the skete into his own hands and himself decided what to do and where, without asking the abbot, Fr. Dimitry. The Elder had great love for him and never forbade him from doing what he wanted.

Every year during Great Lent, a well-to-do lady would come to the skete and bring all sorts of fasting delicacies she had made. And Fr. Dimitry, a strict faster and recluse, would meet her and eat with her. To the novice’s bewilderment, he said that this lady brought food prepared with such diligence as an offering to God, not to Fr. Dimitry personally, and if he refused, she would consider it as God rejecting her. The Elder didn’t want to offend her. One of the Elder’s spiritual daughters said that if “this kind woman saw and knew how strictly Fr. Dimitry fasts, she probably wouldn’t have done this year after year,” but no one knew except those closest to him.

There were many among the clergy who were envious of Fr. Dimitry, according to the recollections of his contemporaries; he was the victim of much slander, which he endured with love and patience. Visitors would often come to the picturesque place where the St. Eugene Skete was located to have picnics. They got in the habit of putting their empty wine bottles in one place, until there was a whole mound of them. Then someone started a rumor that the good hieromonk had problems with alcohol. Another rumor accused him of avarice. People often donated to Fr. Dimitry for the monastery, but since it belonged to the diocese, he was worried this money might be “appropriated” for diocesan needs. Therefore, Fr. Dimitry would deposit the donations in the bank in his name and would withdraw funds from time to time for their intended purpose. Evil tongues spread rumors that this man of God was taking Church money for his own needs. But his parishioners insist that “nothing could be further from the truth,” for he was “so non-acquisitive and thrifty that he not only fixed his own clothes, but also washed them in the same water that he bathed in.”

Since his time at Valaam, having preserved his love of the desert life, he never refused trips to serve in distant parishes, which young priests didn’t want to do because of the low pay. “I have to serve people!” he would say. People recall that he humbly endured the harshness of his archpastor, and Archbishop John (Shahovskoy) would say of him: “This is my only obedient priest!”

Things often happen with elders that are beyond human understanding. There’s a story of how Fr. Dimitry “healed” a large Douglas fir that was already almost felled. One day, a neighbor of the skete, who from time to time was allowed to cut down a tree for his own needs, was refused. The neighbor decided to do it secretly and started cutting down a lone tree by the side of the road with a chainsaw. Fr. Dimitry suddenly appeared and stopped him. Caught in the act, the neighbor embarrassingly loaded his equipment into a truck and drove off. But three weeks later he saw that the tree had completely “healed,” which, in his opinion (and he knew his business well), could not have happened, because he had already cut halfway through it. The tree would have fallen due to its weight and the extent of the cut. But “the three was healed on its own; there were no signs of the cut or that it had been chopped—no trace at all! It was impossible. A miracle! I think the priest healed the tree,” the neighbor said. And he wasn’t a religious man.

Those who knew the Elder from his parish ministry believe that the way Fr. Dimitry avoided disputes and quarrels was “not a weakness,” as some thought, but a “strength.” He followed the hesychastic spiritual tradition, practicing silence and the Jesus Prayer. “Although he sincerely preferred a skete or a monastery to a parish, he obediently and humbly bore his cross, teaching others by his example.”¹ According to one of his novices, the Elder behaved as though he were a stranger on earth and an “eternal pilgrim,” ever striving “for the Heavenly Jerusalem.” His favorite expression for the spiritual life and for achieving anything was: “Little by little, step by step.”

Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg, where Archimandrite Dimitry is buried     

Archimandrite Dimitry managed to raise a whole galaxy of monks in the U.S. He is remembered as a spiritual father by such well-known American Church figures as Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)² and the popular preacher Abbot Tryphon (Parsons)Tryphon (Parsons), Abbot

“>Abbot Tryphon (Parsons) of the All-Merciful Savior Monastery on Vashon Island, founded by Archimandrite Dimitry in 1986. Bishop Gerasim (Eliel) also talks about meeting him in 1981.³ He recalls that he witnessed the “gift of tears” in the Elder’s Jesus Prayer. His name has been on the Orthodox Church in America’s list of candidates for canonization for many years now. However, investigative files on the future archimandrite could not be found in Russian archives. Grateful venerators of Archimandrite Dimitry have prepared an icon of him, being convinced of the Elder’s holiness because of the many testimonies of his clairvoyance and spiritual help. In Russia, this ascetic is practically unknown, though his memory has been preserved in Valaam. And in 1997, there was an article in the journal of the Moscow Patriarchate about the Russian skete in Santa Rose that talked about Archimandrite Dimitry.⁴

Some of the Elder’s spiritual children and novices dispersed to various jurisdictions after his repose, but they’re all united by love for this man, who testified with his life to the truth of Orthodox and the height of the monastic calling.

This article was prepared on the basis of a report at a conference dedicated to the centenary of the foundation of the Solovki gulag.

Feeling sad, disappointed or ashamed of oneself sometimes is normal and even can lead to conversion, but when people wallow in their sadness it becomes a dangerous vice, Pope Francis said.

“We all go through ordeals that generate sorrow in us, because life makes us formulate dreams that are then shattered,” the pope said during his weekly general audience Feb. 7. While some people, “after a time of turmoil, rely on hope,” others “wallow in melancholy, allowing it to fester in their hearts.”

When “sadness is the pleasure of non-pleasure,” he said, it goes from being a natural emotion to being “an evil state of mind.”

Continuing his series of audience talks on vices and virtues, the pope looked at how nurturing the “type of sorrow that creeps into the soul and prostrates it in a state of despondency” is a denial of the deep-seated hope that faith in God should produce.

Pope Francis said it is like taking a piece of candy that is “bitter, bitter, bitter, without sugar, awful, and sucking on that candy.”

The kind of sorrow that leads one to lose hope in God “must be fought resolutely and with every strength, because it comes from the evil one,” he said. “It is a devious demon, that sorrow. The fathers of the desert described it as a worm of the heart, which erodes and hollows out its host.”

Just a week before Lent was to begin in the Latin-rite church, the pope said that “it is a grace to lament over one’s own sins, to remember the state of grace from which we have fallen, to weep because we have lost the purity in which God dreamed of us.”

But that sorrow should lead to the joy of knowing that one is forgiven and loved by God, he said.

When one is sad and disappointed, even laid low by the grief of losing a loved one, he said, a Christian holds on to faith in the resurrection of Jesus and the knowledge that all can be saved.

“We must be attentive,” the pope said. “Sadness can be a very bad thing that leads us to pessimism, to a self-centeredness that is difficult to heal.”

St. Gregory the Theologian the Archbishop of ConstantinopleSaint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople, a great Father and teacher of the Church, was born into a Christian family of eminent lineage in the year 329, at Arianzos.

“>St. Gregory (329–391), fiery defender of Orthodoxy, profound thinker, and subtle theologian, is called Gregory the Theologian by the Universal Church. He became widely famous for his forty-five homilies, fragments of certain of which were even sung as church hymns. However, St. Gregory the Theologian was also a great ecclesiastical poet.

The saint wrote the larger part of his poetical compositions during the last years of his earthly life—after his return from Constantinople. The verses are not only dedicated to theological themes and moral teachings. A special category of the saint’s poetical heritage is his autobiographical works: memoirs, and poems written at the deaths of friends. The more well-known of these is a long poem in 1949 iambic verses, called, “Pro Vita Sua”.

The saint explains his motive behind using this literary form in the work, “On my Poems”. First of all, the poetic form “educates” the author, accustoming him to caring about measure, to expressing himself succinctly. Secondly, the saint wanted to give examples of soul-profiting poetry to those who love literary art, especially the young, and to take away the palm of primacy in literature from the ancient authors, “the incautious reading of which has at times brought forth bad fruits”. And thirdly, it is a war on heretics, mainly the Apollinarians, who composed new psalters and verses. “We shall also sing psalms, write much, and compose verse.”

St. Gregory’s verse is written in the traditions of ancient metrics: hexameters, pentameters, and trimeters. Nevertheless, the “Evening Hymn” we offer our readers is an exception. His poem [in the original] is seven-syllabic, syllabic-tonal, and closer to modern verse.

According to the testimony of St. John Chrysostom

“>St. John Chrysostom, this hymn was sung at evening services. It was basically yet another step towards the creation of Byzantine liturgical poetry.

In the hymn, St. Gregory’s favorite themes are developed, including the unity of the Holy Trinity, the creation of the world, the creation of man as an “image of light”, his enlightenment and theosis, universal harmony, and man’s ascetical life.

The translation, maximally approximating the original in length and meaning, was made from the ancient Greek language in the publication, Patrologia Graeca. v. 36. Col. 511–514.

This poem was translated into Russian by author and scholar Deacon Vladimir Vasilik. We are translating this Russian version into English, knowing of course that such a translation cannot match one from the original ancient Greek.—OC.

Evening Hymn

We bless Thee,
My Christ, Word of God
From Beginningless Light
Thou art Light, Keeper of the Spirit,
The Triune Light in one
Thou doest establish in glory.
And the movement of matter
Thou hast placed in order
And comeliness now.
And human mind
By wisdom and word
Thou hast enlightened, having placed,
Like brightness an icon
In the heights as in the deep.
Yeah, He sees the Light in light
And it becometh light completely.
Thou hast adorned with lamps
The great vaults of heaven
And commanded that, peacefully,
The darkness of night would
Alternate with day, so that the law of
Love and brotherhood be observed.
Thou dost complete at night
The labors of our much-toiling flesh,
And set us to do by day,
What is pleasing to Thee.
That escaping the darkness,
We might reach the day,
That before day we be not subject
To terrible, ominous darkness.
And give Thou sleep most light
To my weary eyes,
That my tongue, singing praises,
Joining chorus with the heavenly powers
May not long fall motionless,
May not Thy servant fall silent
Amidst good thoughts
In his departure to sleep.
Let night not reproach
The defiled thought of the day,
And let the mocking laughter of night
Not hinder lamentation.
But may the mind outside the body
Glorify Thee, O God.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
To Them together be praise,
Honor and glory,
Unto the ages of ages.

This also occurred a few years back: in 2018, Ash Wednesday fell on Valentine’s Day (and previously to that, in 1945). A Dominican parish in Cincinnati decided to make hay of it by sponsoring a special spiritual series for the season titled “Lent Is for Lovers.” Provocative but brilliant!

Everybody knows that Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrating the joys of romantic love, but the whole of the liturgical season of Lent is dedicated to celebrating the greatest of all loves: “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” — words spoken by Jesus as he entered into his Passion (John 15:13).

St. Valentine and God’s friendship

This co-incidence of celebrations is not coincidental. Valentine (+280), after all, was a saint who was also a martyr. His whole existence was about laying down his life for his Beloved. St. Valentine’s witness offers the perfect way to commence our Lent on Ash Wednesday.

According to the 13th- century classic lives of the saints “The Golden Legend,” the emperor Claudius one day confronted the venerable priest Valentine with these words: “Why do you not win our friendship by adoring our gods and abandoning your vain superstitions?” St. Valentine replied: “If you but knew the grace of God, you would turn your mind away from idols and adore the God who is in heaven.” Whereupon, St. Valentine was tortured and beheaded.

That is exactly what we want to do during Lent: to know the overwhelming grace of God, to turn our mind away from idols, and to adore the God of heaven precisely in order to live in his friendship. As ashes are placed on our forehead this Ash Wednesday, the priest will say to us: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway, explained the spiritual significance of this:

“When I remember I am dust I also recall that I was destined to be more. To say, on these terms, that I am dust is not degrading. It is God who degrades himself for love, stooping down from celestial realms to re-shape and re-inspirit humble matter.”

In other words, those ashes are the best of Valentines.

 

The perfect valentine

Who doesn’t want to get a valentine? But we crave a love that surpasses the sentimental. We want an ultimate love … and infinite love. And it has to be comprised of three things.

It has to be a love that comes to us as a gift. If instead it is something we need to “earn,” then it’s nothing but compensation — not real love. God loves us because he is good, not because we are. Ash Wednesday is the time to begin our begging for this gift. In the words of the 14th- century mystic Walter Hilton, “the lover of God is his friend, not because he has deserved to be, but because God in his merciful goodness has made him so by a very real pact.” Namely, the cross.

Second, it has to be a love that keeps declaring to us, It is necessary that you exist! In the short story “Sine, Cosine, Tangent” by American author Don DeLillo, the agnostic main character decides one Ash Wednesday to present himself for ashes. It becomes for him an occasion of powerful grace, for through it he knows himself to be wanted, chosen: 

“I went to the altar rail and knelt, the priest approached and made his mark, a splotch of holy ash thumb-printed to my forehead. Dust you are. …”

The man begins to realize: “My parents were not Catholic. I didn’t know what we were. We were eat and sleep. We were Take Daddy’s Suit to the dry cleaner.” Yet that sacred impression to his forehead continues to impress him:

 “But the robed priest and the small grinding action of his thumb implanting the ash. And unto dust you shall return. … I didn’t know what this was. … I wanted the stain to last for days and weeks.”

And third, the love has to be a love that is indestructible. However, that love comes to us through the destruction of God’s Son on the cross … and through his resurrection. The reason we mortify ourselves during Lent is to predispose ourselves, more and more, to be able to receive and hold fast to this indestructible love. For love is what penance is all about. “Every penance that increases love is good; any penance that narrows and preoccupies the soul is harmful” (Von Balthasar).

Ash Wednesday calls us to recommit ourselves to our only real priority, especially by doing away with the doubt that derails us. St. John of Ávila expresses it in a prayer we would do well to offer often this Lent:

 “O God who are Love itself, how we wound you if we do not trust in you with all our hearts! If, after the favors you have shown us, and after having died for us, we do not feel confidence in you, we must be worse than very brutes. In the times that we offended you, you cherished us. You followed after us when we fled from you. You drew us to yourself. Please keep us from ever distrusting you or questioning whether you do love us and intend to save us.”

Being a valentine

Let’s start our Lent this Ash Wednesday giving others a lasting valentine — the miracle of Divine Love made possible through the Paschal Mystery:

 “The ultimate miracle of Divine Love is this, that the life of the Risen Lord is given to us to give to one another. It is given to us through our own human loves” (Caryll Houselander).

After all, Lent is for lovers.

St. Richard of Lucca was the father of Sts. Willibald, Winnebald, and Walburga. He and two of his sons were on a pilgrimage to Rome from Wessex, where they lived. Richard died on the way, at Lucca, Italy.

After his death, miracles were reported at Richard’s tomb. He was venerated by the citizens of Lucca, who made up stories about his life and dubbed him “king of the English.”

When I was a kid in school I marveled at stories about the early explorers. The Spanish, no doubt because they were the Catholic “good guys,” were the favorites. The complicated facts of culture, land, power, enslavement, diseases, etc., would come later. When you’re 10 and your head is filled with images of dashing soldiers in curved steel helmets and armor, with long swords fastened at their waists, you’re good to go.

The other stories we were imbued with were those of famous missionaries. The stories of these men — the French missionaries in Canada, the Jesuits who traveled to Japan, and a host of others — filled us with awe and a certain amount of dread. But those days of martyrdom, so we thought, were remote and far away, not something we had to worry about in our American suburban bubbles.

“The Mission,” a film currently on Hulu, is the story of a missionary in modern times, a young man from a not-so-remote land who gave his life with a Bible in his hand.

John Chau had a typical childhood. He grew up in an evangelical Protestant household and, besides his own infatuation with explorers and adventures, his faith in Christ grew into a vocation.

Chau was so filled with zeal and a sense of adventure that in 2018 he embarked on a course to become a missionary like many who had gone before him. He was resolute to travel to a remote place and preach the Gospel to people who had never heard the word.

In the 16th century, there were whole continents full of people who would fit that bill. Today, with every inch of the globe seemingly inhabited by people or recorded by satellite imagery, it is hard for us to contemplate a land where no “outside” human has visited. But there are still locations on terra firma where not much human contact has been made. In the Bay of Bengal, John Chau found what is known as North Sentinel Island.

Located within the territorial waters of India, the island is “managed” by the Indian government, but that is a term of art. India keeps its distance and its policy is for others to do likewise. There is a good reason for that. The people there do not want to be contacted and have a history of making their wishes known with spears and arrows.

This is the place Chau felt destined to travel to with his Bible and to talk about Jesus. 

The documentary tells the story of how this all-American boy from California, with loving and devoted parents, not only stayed in the faith his parents espoused but made it the center of his life. 

The family did not participate in the documentary. The only personal commentary is an excerpt from a letter written by John’s father about his son’s decision to undertake this missionary adventure.

The father was a man of science, and although he expresses belief in Jesus, he does not understand his son’s zeal. In the letter, he openly questions his son’s decision. It is heartbreaking to hear the words of a stricken parent.

The film seems fair, but from the father’s letter and interviews with former missionaries who have “seen the light” and now believe the missionary model is suspect, Chau is portrayed as reckless and impractical. 

Was this a wise thing for this young man to do? Obviously not. But what is the history of the Church but a series of “unwise” words and actions? It was not wise for Jesus to say “before Abraham was, I am.” It was not wise for St. Peter to go back to Rome so he could be seized and hung upside down on a cross.

We do not have to fly toward the red martyrdom of John Chau, but almost every day here in Los Angeles there is an opportunity for us to be missionaries. Witnessing here may not get us a literal arrow through the heart, but it can lead to a “white martyrdom” of isolation, lost friendships, and even lost employment, if we hold to the teachings of the Church in the headwind of a society in defiance of those same teachings.

Maybe John Chau should not have run so hard toward his fate, but neither should we run so hard in the other direction.

Virginia’s Catholic bishops have raised concerns that assisted suicide could soon become legal in the state after legislation promoting the practice recently advanced in both the state House and Senate, with debate in each chamber expected in the coming weeks.

In a Feb. 5 message, Bishops Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Barry Knestout of Richmond wrote to “implore” the faithful of their dioceses to contact their state senator and delegate and “urge them to reject assisted suicide legislation.”

“Every suicide is a tragedy. Assisted suicide facilitates tragedies, and makes the most vulnerable people even more vulnerable,” Burbidge and Knestout said. “Legalizing it would place the lives of people with disabilities, people with mental illness, the elderly, and those unable to afford healthcare – among others – at heightened risk of deadly harm.”

The senate legislation, SB 280, states that it “allows an adult with a terminal condition to request an attending health care provider to prescribe a self-administered controlled substance for the purpose of ending the patient’s life.” It defines a “terminal disease” as one that is incurable and irreversible that will produce death within six months.

The legislation would also require that the patient’s request must be given orally on two occasions and presented in writing, signed by the patient and one witness. It adds that the patient must be given the opportunity to rescind the request at any time.

The verbiage of the senate bill mirrors that of the house measure, HB 858.

In the senate, the legislation was introduced by Democrat Ghazala Hashmi. She has previously highlighted that a number of constituents, patients, and families have reached out to her office to “share their difficult medical journeys, their desire to control their critical end-of-life decisions, and the trauma of suffering that often accompanies terminal illnesses.”

“This legislation continues to put guardrails in place, requiring a deliberate process with a medical team, the diagnosis of a terminal illness with six months or fewer left to live, and the ability to self-administer medications,” Hashmi said in a Jan. 23 news release. “Should this legislation pass, this option will not be for everyone; however, a majority of Virginians ask that they have this option.”

State Democratic Delegate Patrick Hope, who introduced the legislation in the house, added in a statement of his own that “medical aid in dying is about providing someone at the end of life a choice to die with compassion and dignity.”

Burbidge and Knestout argue the opposite.

“Human life is sacred and must never be abandoned or discarded,” Burbidge and Knestout said.

“People facing the end of life are in great need, and must be accompanied with great care and attentiveness,” the bishops added. “The address each of their needed and alleviate their suffering, patients deserve high quality medical, palliative, and hospice care – not suicide drugs.”

The initiative by Virginia legislators to legalize what in essence is physician assisted suicide is similar to that of legislators in the neighboring state of Maryland, where both chambers of the state government introduced legislation of the same kind as Virginia in recent weeks.

Ten states and Washington, D.C., have legalized assisted suicide – Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, and New Mexico.

In Maryland, the development prompted a letter from Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and Bishop William Koenig of Wilmington, who, like the bishops in Virginia, urged the faithful to advocate against the legislation.

“We urge all people of good will to demand that our lawmakers reject suicide as an end-of-life option and to choose the better, safer path that involves radical solidarity with those facing the end of their earthly journey,” stated a Jan. 30 letter from the bishops.

“Let us choose a path that models true compassion and dignity to those facing end of life decisions and protects the most vulnerable from the deadly proposition of physician assisted suicide,” the bishops wrote.

When the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast honors Helen Alvaré with its annual Christifideles Laici Award on Feb. 8, the pro-life legal scholar and speaker will deliver some hard truths to her Beltway audience.

Given the headwinds facing the Catholic Church and the pro-life movement, Alvaré told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that lay Catholics “can’t leave the challenge of communicating the faith to the professionals. To repeat that famous line: ‘You have to give a reason for the hope that is in you’” (1 Pt 3:15).

Alvaré has sought to live this teaching in her own life and work as a go-to legal expert who has advised the U.S. bishops and the Vatican. At present, she holds the Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Virginia. She previously served for 13 years at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, initially in the Office of General Counsel and then at the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.

The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast “was established in response to St. John Paul the Great’s call for a new evangelization, and Helen, who gave an extraordinary speech at our 2013 breakfast, has demonstrated a fearless commitment to the faith in her personal and professional life,” Mark Randall, director and chairman of the event, told the Register.

“Helen Alvaré’s achievements as a legal scholar are not only extraordinary, they are almost unique,” Gerard Bradley, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, told the Register. “She holds a chaired professorship at a top-flight, secular law school. But while most solidly pro-life scholars who reach the same heights do so by publishing on subjects that are far afield from abortion and family law, and their students may not even know that their professor is pro-life, Helen Alvaré has become a nationally renowned legal scholar by publishing on life and family issues and also continues to speak out.”

Archbishop Emeritus Charles Chaput of Philadelphia echoed Bradley’s assessment, as he noted Alvaré’s extensive contributions to both the U.S. bishops’ work on pro-life issues and the broader public discourse on polarizing social issues that not only divide the American electorate but U.S. Catholics as well.

“In 2015, when we held the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, we chose Helen to present on the main stage,” Chaput said, noting her skill as a speaker who makes the faith “attractive.”

Loss and hope

In 2022, the Catholic University of America published Alvaré’s latest work, “Religious Freedom After the Sexual Revolution: A Catholic Guide.” It outlines her argument for a more robust and confident Catholic response to growing threats to religious freedom and highlights the link between Christian sexual ethics and love of God and neighbor.

The text is imbued with the author’s love of the faith and of Scripture. Both ground her public ministry and keep her going when reasons for hope can feel elusive.

In 2022, Alvaré lost her husband of 37 years, Brian Joseph Duggan, 64, an international trade representative, following a ruptured aneurysm. The couple met as undergraduates at Villanova University and raised three children, Catherine, Julian, and Robert Paul.

Duggan’s death has left Alvaré feeling more vulnerable and reflective, and she struggled to contain her emotions as she spoke about the shock of his unexpected death.

She has also been shaken to her core by the fury of the political backlash to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with abortion-rights activists celebrating a slew of wins at the ballot box over the past year.

“When you see people jumping up and down to celebrate the destruction of a human life inside the person charged most with the protection and care of that life, you know something’s deeply wrong,” said Alvaré, her tone more somber than usual but still retaining its passionate intensity.

Return to the ‘basics’

The present state of U.S. culture and politics requires a return to the “basics” of moral reasoning and feels like a throwback to the 1990s, when she was in her 30s and served as the U.S. bishops’ spokeswoman on life issues. “Back then, when I got on a plane to give a pro-life talk somewhere and a fellow passenger asked me what I did, I’d look around to consider how many ‘stare downs’ I could take on one flight,” she said with a laugh.

But she also understood the feminist mindset that may have provoked the “stare downs.”

“I am a product of second-wave feminism and had no intention of marrying or having children,” she said. “I just happened to meet Brian, and thought, ‘How do I keep my dearest friend in my life forever?’ And it’s like, oh, marriage is the vehicle for me to never be parted from Brian and to have children together.”

Over time, Alvaré’s experience as a wife and mother altered her outlook and continues to inform her life choices today.

“You learn from your children and you learn to sacrifice,” she said. “That has been huge in my life.”

But her exposure to the deep countercultural truths that ground Catholic family life actually began in her own childhood, in a comfortable Philadelphia suburb.

Alvaré was the youngest of five siblings raised in a vibrant, devoutly Catholic home headed by a beloved Cuban-American father. And while Helen was a star student with many interests, she was close to her sister Louise, who struggled with intellectual disabilities.

“Helen, who was always very loquacious, was Louise’s defender,” Rodie Alvaré, one of Helen’s older siblings, told the Register. “If someone in the neighborhood wasn’t nice to Louise, she would go and speak to them.”

Anita Alvaré, another sister, told the Register that “Louise defined our family and made us more aware of those in need. Helen started volunteering in Appalachia in high school, and her life has been given over to service,” she said. “And I, for one, have always admired Louise more than anyone because of her daily struggle [to accomplish her goals.]”

Confounding stereotypes

Alvaré brought these life experiences to her work for the USCCB.

In 1987, she arrived as a newly minted doctor of law from Cornell Law School. She helped draft amicus briefs for Supreme Court cases at the conference’s legal counsel office, while finishing up a master’s in systematic theology at the Catholic University of America.

But as her distinct mix of strengths became apparent, bishops’ conference officials offered her a new and critically important position at the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.

Richard Doerflinger, who served for more than three decades as associate director of the secretariat, told the Register that Alvaré’s appointment marked the conference’s decision to enter the nation’s ongoing debate over the morality and legality of abortion in a new, more media-savvy way.

The politics of life issues had begun to shift during this period, and the USCCB’s own polling revealed that many Americans knew almost nothing about Roe v. Wade.

“We realized that what we needed was not only basic education but someone to go on talk shows and television and write op-eds to explain what Roe actually meant,” Doerflinger said. “Helen was a brilliant attorney who was fast on her feet and had a knack for presenting complicated matters in an appealing and easily understandable way.”

“Her personality mitigated backlash,” he added. And her sense of humor and sense of style “tended to confound people’s stereotypes” about how pro-life women should dress, speak, or behave.

The result, he said, was that Alvaré often disarmed her opponents while also inspiring young pro-life women to get more involved in the battle over legal abortion.

Theresa Notare, who serves as assistant director of the Natural Family Planning Program at the USCCB and has known Alvaré for more than 30 years, singled out her ability to diffuse political polarization. “I have listened to many of her talks and never saw her lose her cool or treat another person in a debate with less than the dignity they are owed as a child of God,” Notare told the Register.

“She is also one of the hardest workers I know: Her love language is getting the job done — whether it’s making a meal for her family and friends, writing an article, or training other women to speak publicly [on social issues].”

Alvaré continued with her pro-life speaking and legal activities after she took up her new duties as a law professor at George Mason University, where she has taught for almost 24 years.

Henry Butler, the Manne Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason, who previously served as dean of the university’s law school, told the Register that Alvaré was a draw for applicants who closely followed her legal scholarship and related initiatives.

“When I was dean, I recruited students to come to George Mason, and I found out what they were interested in,” Butler said. “Those who shared Helen’s objectives already knew who she was and wanted to be a student of hers.”

Some of those future lawyers most likely had read and possibly signed a 2012 open letter Alvaré co-authored, “Catholic Women Speak for Themselves,” which challenged efforts by the Democratic Party to frame the U.S. bishops’ opposition to President Barack Obama’s contraceptive mandate as a “war on women.” The letter, which reflected Alvaré’s ongoing campaign to help Catholic women challenge false political narratives, garnered tens of thousands of signatures.

Alvaré has published widely in scholarly journals, and for the Dobbs case before the Supreme Court, she co-authored a high-profile amicus brief that sought to dismantle claims that the overthrow of Roe v. Wade would stall women’s economic and social progress.

“[G]iven the wide array of other possible factors fostering women’s success, it is impossible to show that abortion is the cause of women’s economic and social success,” concluded the brief, written by Alvaré, the Abigail Adams Institute’s Erika Bachiochi, and University of St. Thomas law professor Teresa Collett, who deployed a trove of data to upend a central argument of abortion-rights advocates. “It is more likely, in fact, that widely available abortion harmed women in the realms of personal relationships as well as in the development of law and policy accommodating women’s childbearing and parenting.”

The 2022 Dobbs ruling marked a breakthrough for abortion politics in the U.S. However, the ensuing pushback has led Alvaré to drill deeper into the relationship between the law and religion in her legal writings.

At the same time, her husband’s sudden passing has made her more aware of the radical demands of her vocation as a Catholic mother and scholar.

And these days she spends more time in prayer and reflection and has “intensified her dedication” to her students and her adult children.

“Jesuit Walter Ciszek, in his famous book, ‘He Leadeth Me,’ wrote that he stopped asking about the big questions all the time, and just said, ‘Your will is here in the room with me. It’s the next thing I’ve been asked to do,’” she noted. “This has become more evident to me.”

‘Make the case for Christ’

And yet, the “big questions” have always been central to Alvaré’s public outreach. Indeed, during her interview with the Register, she spoke passionately about the need to counter the aggressive promotion of abortion following the Dobbs decision.

“It is important to remind people of what is at stake in this wealthy, powerful nation that is losing its way in many areas,” she said. “Will we make room for new life, value childbearing, the role of women, the role of fathers, the role of sacrifice?”

“But to share this truth,” she concluded, “we have to learn to speak to people who are almost unchurched, including Catholics who were raised in a Catholic home and attended Catholic school.”

Today, as before, she is urging fellow Catholics to “make the case for Christ” and show what is beautiful and distinctive about the Christian vision of life.

“To reflect on these questions,” she said, “is to understand how attractive, how brilliant, how consoling, how challenging the Catholic faith is.”

Freedom of religion is “deteriorating” in Hong Kong, and the United States — along with other democracies — should use its influence to promote religious liberty in the region, a new report on communist Chinese persecution in the city said.

The Chinese government is now tightening its grip on the region of over 7 million residents, said the Jan. 30 report, called “Hostile Takeover: The CCP and Hong Kong’s Religious Communities.”

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Its citizens have historically enjoyed freedom of worship, while in mainland China there is a long history of persecution against Christians who defy the communist government.

With the passage of a new security law in 2020, the Chinese government gained more power to suppress pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which the regime viewed as a direct threat to its power.

There are several Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiatives that indicate the party wants to take away Hong Kongers’ freedom of religion, according to the report, which was published by the Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.

In the “2021 Mainland Chinese Bluebook,” which “stresses the strategic and geopolitical importance of Hong Kong’s religions for China,” the report said Christians, and Catholics in particular, have been targeted.

In the document, Christian groups are accused of encouraging students to participate in “violent protests” and collude with “foreign organizations,” according to the report.

The party’s “bluebook” also said Hong Kong’s Catholics are more politically involved than other Christians, the report said.

The religious freedom report said there is evidence that the Chinese Communist Party has sought to enculturate its values into the nation’s faith traditions.

The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong has held at least three seminars on the “sinicization of religion,” the report said. Additionally, the diocese ordered all of its priests, seminarians, and women religious to visit the Chinese capital of Beijing, the report said.

“All the trips and discussions have omitted the ‘underground’ church and the persecuted faithful in mainland China,” the report said. The “underground” Church refers to Chinese Catholics loyal to the pope over the government.

The Chinese national flag is required to be displayed in faith-based schools “beside sacred symbols,” the report said.

The report also said that certain student textbooks in Hong Kong’s school system contain “prayers” praising China and Chinese identity, adding that teachers are required to integrate “national security education and patriotic and socialist values into the curriculum.”

There is an increase in the number of “pro-Beijing teachers and principals” in religious schools, the report said. Those schools have “sister schools” in mainland China, which has led to “more engagements with external pro-Beijing organizations on campus.”

The report said that Hong Kong’s Catholic Church is “suppressing” information on religious persecution in the mainland and has “diluted its focus on advocating the rights of the faithful in China.”

The report mentioned the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong’s removal of a 2021 interview it posted on its Facebook page of a priest, Father Vincent Woo, telling EWTN that the CCP is using “reeducation” and propaganda to suppress religious freedom in the mainland.

The page administrator resigned after the removal and no other diocesan-run paper publicized the interview, according to the report.

The report also pointed to Hong Kong’s National Security Law imposed by the CCP in 2020, which gives broad power to both governments to crack down on what would be considered First Amendment freedoms in America.

The report said the National Security Law was used in 2022 to arrest and imprison Protestant pastor Gary Pang Moon-yuen, who “allegedly” interrupted the trial of Chow Hang-tung, a protester who commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

The Tiananmen crackdown was the government’s violent suppression of protests in 1989 of peaceful protests calling for political and economic reform.

The pastor, Moon-yuen, was sentenced to 13 months in prison for sedition and seditious speech on Oct. 30, 2022, the report said.

The report calls on the U.S., “together with other democracies,” to act.

It calls on U.S. lawmakers to support two bills, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, to deter religious freedom violators in the region. Those bills would require the State Department to periodically review the state of human rights in Hong Kong to determine whether it is truly separate from China. The proposed legislation would also place sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials who violate the region’s autonomy.

The democracies should hold hearings on the CCP’s religious freedom violations in Hong Kong and abroad, the report said. They should also “[d]iscourage the Vatican from extending to Hong Kong the secret deal made with Beijing.” The controversial deal made in 2018 is a confidential agreement between China and Rome on the appointment of bishops.

The full report can be read here.

Photo: rasfokus.ru Christian wisdom, supported also by Holy Scripture, says that a village won’t stand without a righteous person, nor a city without three. This saying reveals a well-known Gospel truth, that the saints and righteous ones are the salt of the earth, the meaning of its existence, and the fruit for the sake of which God continues the life of the world. Every Christian country, every people, every city is called to give birth to saints and righteous ones, who are the very foundation and source of God’s good will for that country, people, or city. For St. Petersburg, the leader of this host of righteous ones was St. Xenia of PetersburgSt. Xenia of Petersburg

“>Holy Blessed Xenia, the first to shine forth in holiness of life in that still young city, the northern capital of Imperial Russia.

Foolishness for Christ is one of the highest Christian ascetical labors, perhaps the highest of all. Why is that so? Because fools-for-Christs, fulfill God’s commandments more than all other ascetical laborers, namely those that no (or almost no) other Christians fulfill. After all, who can say that he fulfills Christ’s commandment, “Take no thought for tomorrow?” What Christian trusts God so much that he lives likes the birds of the air, having absolutely no care for his own needs—what he will eat, or drink, or where he will live? Only the greatest of saints have fulfilled this, such as Holy Prophet Elias

“>Prophet Elias, or The Life of St. John the BaptistThis John was called by God to be the forerunner of his Divine Son, to usher Him into the world, and to prepare mankind by repentance to receive the Redeemer, whom the prophets had foretold at a distance through every age from the beginning of the world, never ceasing to instill in the people of God faith and hope in Him by whom alone they were to be saved.”>St. John the Forerunner, or a very few other great desert-dwellers. The majority of Christians throughout all times, of course, could not fulfill this commandment—or at best, fulfill it only to a small extent. For, all we do is care for tomorrow, for what we’ll eat, drink, and what clothes we will wear. People are afraid of obscurity; but in the words of one eldress, obscurity is nothing other than grace, faith, love, and joy…

Yet another commandment, which St. Xenia and great souls like her fulfilled unlike most other ascetics, is, “store up not treasure for yourselves on earth.” People constantly gather treasures for themselves on earth—they save money, possessions, are drawn to various pleasures, have their weaknesses and lusts—not necessarily even of a coarse and sensual nature. Someone, for example, is attached to books, films, music, theater, the acquisition of knowledge, or erudition. All these things are not directly sins, but nevertheless are part of gathering treasures on earth. Even strict ascetics and monks were not free of such gathering, for they had certain possessions: a cell, clothing, books, and other things. But fools-for-Christ have nothing, they do not gather any treasures for themselves on earth, imitating in this respect Christ Himself, Who was a stranger on this earth and had nowhere to lay His head.

Yet another commandment that we observe very poorly is: “Deny yourself, and take up your cross.” We are too attached to ourselves and therefore we deny ourselves and take up our cross only with great difficulty and for a short time. It is very hard for us to renounce our weaknesses and attachments for Christ’s sake. But the life of a blessed fool-for-Christ is uninterrupted self-denial and carrying of the cross. All the things by which people usually live—money, power, glory, and fleshly pleasures—they rejected, they laughed at it all. But these blessed ones walked the path of self-denial and renunciation of the world to the end. Even the most precious thing given to man for life on earth—his reason—they voluntarily renounced.

Reason for man is the same as the sun is for creation; with the help of reason a man sees and learns about the world, establishes his prosperity on earth, and acquires goods. But in their renunciation of the world the blessed ones as if do not want to use their reason, they renounce this priceless gift, this sun; they renounce it for the sake of the true Sun, the Sun of Righteousness, Christ. And this is sacred madness, the madness of love for God. The saints renounce the whole world and all that is in it in order to more strongly love Christ. If the world did not receive Christ, if with all its reason, wisdom, and culture, the world did not recognize Him but betrayed Him to crucifixion (and we must remember that it was the Romans who sentences Christ to death, and they were a nation of high intellect and culture), then I renounce this world who killed Christ, renounce it with its greatest treasure, its sun—human reason. I do not want this world, I do not want its truth and wisdom, but I seek only one truth—the truth of the crucified Christ.

Seeking the truth of the crucified Christ, the blessed ones crucified themselves and carried throughout their lives the truly great cross of labors, sorrows, and trials. It is difficult to even imagine what Blessed Xenia endure through those long years of her homeless life of wandering in Petersburg. The fierce and long northern frosts, hunger, sickness, mockery, insults, beatings… She drank this great cup of suffering to the dregs. In the Gospel it says that Christ overcame the world and that His faithful followers will likewise overcome the world. What does it mean to overcome the world? For a Christian, overcoming the world means preserving his love and unity with Christ, carrying this love through all sorrows, sufferings, and the darkness of this age, and not rarely through the open enmity and evil with which the world attacks, with truly diabolical evil. But this evil could not extinguish the flame of love for Christ. This is also how the fools-for-Christ overcame the world, carrying their love through sorrows and trials.

St. Silouan of Mt. Athos: “I have many sorrows of my own, and they are my own fault…”There are moments when it seems that circumstances are indeed beyond our power, when life breaks down and it’s painful even to look at the world around us. Reality is cruel, and the soul can truly become sick. And no one knows when sorrows will knock at doors of the heart. But we must know in that moment how to answer these unawaited guests…

“>St. Silouan the Athonite said that the more love the soul has, the more it suffers. From these words is seen that true love for Christ is always tested, and the more the love, the more trials it undergoes. We do not have great sorrows because we love Christ little. But to those rare souls who are capable of loving Christ with great love, great trials are sent—but the saints are not overcome by them. Love is not extinguished but only burns the greater, and attains perfection. These souls can say with the apostle Paul, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35–39). So, this is what it means to overcome the world as a Christian…

On this path of Christ’s love that overcomes the world did Blessed Xenia walk. There were many great and glorious people in St. Petersburg in her day: excellent nobles, brilliant princes, famous generals, aristocrats, and ladies of the court. Beautifully brought up and educated, with impeccable manners and taste, these noble people shone like stars in the capital city’s skies. In their lives they were indulged and praised by all. But who now remembers their names? No one, with the possible exception of some scholars who might note some of them in the course of their research. But Holy Blessed Xenia was a poor, homeless wanderer, despised and rejected by all. People, society, and state took no notice of her, and when they did it was only to insult her, laugh at her, cause her offense, and increase her suffering. It would seem that if in her lifetime no one remembered her, then all the more would did they forget her after her death. But two hundred years later we see that Blessed Xenia is glorified by God in heaven and on earth, people pray to her, honor her, and build churches dedicated to her. Her name is glorious throughout all Russia, and far beyond its borders. And this would seem to be an impossible miracle if we forget what the Lord says in Holy Scripture: “I love those who love Me, and glorify those who glorify Me.” And, “The glory that Thou gavest Me did I give to them…” The Lord Himself glorifies the saints with His own glory—the glory that He Himself had. Therefore does Holy Blessed Xenia shine with eternal and undying glory—because she is not forgotten by God or by people.

And we, brothers and sisters, are also called to this eternal, timeless glory. And although we are far from the labors and perfection of the saints, we should nevertheless emulate them to the measure of our ability, we should walk the path that they walked—the path of self-denial and Christian love. And if we work and strive to live that way, then we will be vouchsafed with them that eternal heavenly glory, by which the Lord glorifies those who love Him. Amen.