Tag: Christianity

Every so often I stumble upon a book that gives a name to a part of my life I didn’t even know had a name.

“Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of Intellectual Life” (Princeton University Press, $23.95) is a prime example.

Author Zena Hitz is a tutor in the great books program at St. John’s College, a secular “great books” school, in Annapolis, Maryland.

A Catholic convert, she explores such meaty topics as time, work, and rest.

“The leisure that is necessary for human beings,” she observed in a recent Plough essay, “is not just a break from real life, a place where we rest and restore ourselves in order to go back to work. What we are after is a state that looks like the culmination of a life.”

Hitz grew up in a family where intellectual exploration was seen as a good in and of itself, rather than as a means to an end. Her parents were both book lovers, “amateurs in the best and original sense of the word.” Informal road trips to the beaches and mountains of Northern California were undertaken with the unspoken credo that “the standard for success of an activity was enjoying oneself in fellowship with others.”

She enrolled in St. John’s, the small East Coast college where, after several twists and turns, she would later teach.

At the time she and her fellow students assumed that “books mattered for life.” Nonetheless, having figured out that study “without visible results or high-prestige credentials was enormously useful for other ends,” many of her classmates went on to careers in business, politics, and the law.

Hitz, by contrast, became an academic in classical philosophy. Initially excited and energized by the course work, she soon threw herself into the brutal competition for status and prestige that marked her milieu. She learned to backbite, lord it over, and publicly humiliate.

But when the Twin Towers fell in 2000, something collapsed in Hitz as well. She felt an uncharacteristic urge toward kindness. She began to ask questions like, “What was the point of studying philosophy and classics? What conceivable difference could it make in the face of the suffering world?”

She landed a tenure-track job at a large university in the South, and started to meet people who up till then had remained far outside her social and academic circles: refugees, elderly factory workers, those dying in hospices.

“I began to see that human suffering was not limited to special events and that it could not be ended by reversing particular policies. … Suffering was a cosmic force, an ever-present reality, Christ crucified at the heart of the world. … I began to seek it out, to force myself into regular contact with it.”

She decided to become a Catholic.

But what was her vocation now? Hitz wondered.

“Never short on self-esteem, I was sure that God would want me to do something quite unusual. … I figured I could live in a poor neighborhood as a sort of Catholic anarchist, teaching Greek and Latin out of my living room to the locals.”

Instead, she sold her car, gave away her furniture, put her books in storage, and for three years lived under obedience at Madonna House, a Catholic lay community in Combermere, Ontario, founded by Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985).

The life is rigorous: no internet, virtually no time alone. “All that was permitted to me was a full, ordinary human life: work, service, friendship; leisured time in nature … lovingly prepared liturgical celebrations.”

Hitz saw the profound value in such a life. At the same time, she thought hard about the point of higher learning. She began to realize she was stifling her deepest desires and gifts. She began to think of returning to the small college that had first nurtured her thirst for learning, for asking the deep questions, for pondering the works of those who have asked those questions before us: Homer, St. Augustine, Dante, Dostoevsky.

She realized that throughout time and history there has been a huge unremarked upon body of “ordinary people — library users, taxi drivers, history buffs, prisoners, stockbrokers — doing intellectual work without recognizing it as such or taking pride in it.”

“Lost in Thought” celebrates such people. People who participate fully and responsibly in life but, left to their own devices, immediately shut the door and curl up with a book.

William Herschel and his sister Caroline, for example, 18th-century amateur astronomers who built a telescope through which William discovered the planet Uranus. Russian dissident prisoners who scratched poems into bars of soap with matchsticks and memorized them before washing them away. J.A. Baker, an Englishman with a day job who, crippled by arthritis, obsessively followed falcons for 10 years and wrote “The Peregrine” (1967), today considered a classic of nature writing.

“Intellectual activity nurtures an inner life,” sums up Hitz, “a human core that is a refuge from suffering as much as it is a resource for reflection for its own sake. There are other ways to nurture the inner life: playing music, or helping the weak and vulnerable, or spending time in nature or prayer — but learning is a crucial one.”

Lord, Thou Hast Been our Protection in All GenerationsThe hypnotist lost his temper, shouting so hard that the veins on his face and arms swelled from the tension. He pressed his hands against my shoulders. Finally, covered in sweat, he fell on the leather couch and muttered, “I can’t do anything with her.”

“>Part 1. Lord, Thou Hast Been our Protection in All Generations

St. Gregory of Neocaesarea. Photo: 40ms.ru     

God’s protection

When the persecution of Christians began in the reign of the impious Emperor Decius, a royal command was issued to force Christians everywhere to worship idols, and to torture and destroy any who disobeyed. Therefore, St Gregory the Wonderworker of NeocaesareaSaint Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neocaesarea, was born in the city of Neocaesarea (northern Asia Minor) into a pagan family. Having received a fine education, from his youth he strived for Truth, but the thinkers of antiquity were not able to quench his thirst for knowledge. Truth was revealed to him only in the Holy Gospel, and the youth became a Christian.

“>St. Gregory of Neocaesarea advised his flock to go into hiding in case anyone was too weak or did not possess the gift of God to withstand the terrible torments. This way, no one who might at first boldly give himself over to the torturers but later become frightened at the sight of the terrible tortures, unable to bear anything of this kind, might fall away from God.

“It is better,” said Gregory, “to take refuge for a short time and wait for God to summon you, and then He will provide help to undergo the feat of martyrdom.”

Giving such counsel to the faithful, he took one of his deacons, withdrew into the desert and hid there from the infidels. The torturers dispatched by the king arrived to the city of Neocaesarea, searching first for Gregory as the main representative of all Christians and the shepherd of the sheep of the Word in that country.

Some of the infidels, having learned that he was hiding inside a certain mountain, notified the soldiers and brought them to that mountain. They quickly moved up the mountain like dogs chasing prey on a hunt or like wolves seeking to snatch a sheep.

Seeing that the soldiers were approaching and it was impossible to flee or hide from them, St. Gregory lifted his hands up to heaven, entrusting himself to the protection of God, and commanded his deacon to do the same. Both stood there in this way, with their hands raised, praying. Meanwhile the soldiers kept searching diligently all over the mountain for the saint but they couldn’t find him. They simply couldn’t see him, despite having passed right next to him several times. After many searches they returned without success, and as they were coming down the mountain they told the one who had led them there, “We found no one on this mountain and all that we saw were two trees standing not far from one another.”

That man, realizing that they had witnessed a miracle, left them and went up the mountain himself. Having found the saint and the deacon standing in prayer, he prostrated himself before Gregory and expressed the desire to become a Christian; and his wish was granted. Thus, having been a persecutor he became a servant of Christ, and joined other Christians in hiding.¹

Protection of the Mother of God

Once there lived in Alexandria a certain truly Christ-loving, God-fearing and compassionate man who was known for his hospitality to monks. He had a truly humble wife, who observed every fasting period, and a daughter, about six years old. One day, this Christ-loving man went to Constantinople, for he was a merchant. And so, leaving his wife, daughter, and one slave in the house, he went to the harbor.

Before he left to board the ship, his wife said, “To whom do you entrust us, my lord?” The husband answered: “To our Lady the Mother of God.”

One day, when his wife was sitting over her work with their girl next to her, the servant, at the urging of the devil, decided to kill the woman and the girl, steal their possessions, and run away. Taking the knife from the kitchen, he went inside the dining room where his mistress was sitting. As soon as the slave reached the door of the dining room he was stricken with blindness, and could not make it to the dining room or the kitchen. He tried to force himself with blows for an hour in order to move and then, at last, he began to call loudly for his mistress, “Come here.”

She was surprised that the slave, instead of coming to see her, was standing in the doorway yelling and so she told him, “Come here yourself,” not knowing that he had gone blind. The slave began to exhort her to come to him, but she said that she wouldn’t. Then the slave told her, “Send your girl to help me at least!” She didn’t do this either and replied: “If you want, come here yourself!”

Then the slave, who was truly helpless, stabbed himself with the knife and collapsed in a heap. His mistress, seeing what had happened, raised a clamor. The neighbors came running, and soon the people came from the praetorium; They found the slave still alive, learned everything from him, and praised the Lord Who had worked the miracle and saved the mother and her child.²

The heavenly sentinel

Venerable Cyril of White Lake The Venerable Cyril the Abbot of White LakeSaint Cyril, Igumen of White Lake, (in the world Cosmas) was born in Moscow of pious parents. In his youth he was left an orphan and lived with his kinsman, the boyar (nobleman) Timothy Vasil’evich Vel’yaminov, in the surroundings of the court of the Great Prince Demetrius Donskoy (1363-1389).

“>Venerable Cyril of White Lake was born in Moscow of pious parents. He became a monk in the Simonov monastery. His ascetic labors won him the respect of the whole brotherhood and he was distinguished by St. Sergius, the father of the monastics. In 1390, the brethren of the Simonov monastery begged Monk Cyril to be their abbot.

The numerous and noble visitors who came to the abbot for instruction and blessing greatly disturbed St. Cyril, who shunned worldly glory, and so he soon gave up the dignity of abbot and began the ascetic life as a simple monk.

Seeking complete solitude and silence, St. Cyril, at the miraculous direction of the Mother of God, withdrew to the shores of White Lake (Vologda region), and settling in a remote forest area, he began to lead the life of a hermit. But those zealous for the life of silence flocked to him there, and the holy elder realized that the time of his silence was over. <…>

As the robbers came closer to the monastery, they saw a multitude of men shooting bows and arrows. The next night, the vision occurred again

When the rumor spread that Archimandrite Cyril was sent from Moscow to found a monastery in the woods, it occurred to the boyar Feodor that the Archimandrite must have brought a lot of money with him. So, he sent his servants to rob Cyril. When they approached the monastery, they saw a multitude of men shooting bows and arrows, and so they waited a long time for them to leave. At last, they themselves left, causing no harm to anyone. The next night the robbers saw the same vision, and even more warriors were shown to them near the monastery. Fearing for their lives, they ran to tell the boyar who had sent them.

Feodor was dumbfounded by this news, and assuming some nobleman had come to see St. Cyril, he sent someone to the monastery to find out who that visitor was.

He was told that the monastery hadn’t had any visitors for over a week. It was then that Feodor came to his senses and realized that God Himself was sending angels to protect His saint. Fearing that the judgment of the Lord would befall him, he immediately went to St. Cyril and tearfully confessed his sin. The holy abbot gave thanks to God Who saves those who place their hope in Him, and said, “Rest assured, my son Feodor, that I have nothing but the clothes you see on me and a few books. As for money for the monastery, we get them from the One Who keeps it safe.”

From that time on the boyar reverently venerated St. Cyril, and every time he visited the saint he would bring him fish or something else.³

A vigilant intercessor
From the memoirs of Anatoly Pavlovich Timofeevich

“It happened in the early years of the revolution. The three of us were sitting on the veranda of the abbot’s quarters at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Kiev—the famous spiritual writer S. A. Nilus, Prince V. D. Zhevakhov (brother of the former companion of the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod) and I. <…>

St. Seraphim of Sarov Father Abbot asked S. A. to tell a few stories about grace-filled help through the prayers of St. Seraphim of Sarov

“>St. Seraphim [of Sarov] that he had witnessed.

“What could be better,” replied S. A., “than to share this here among you, my friends, and I will gladly tell you a few wondrous signs of this God-pleasing saint that happened to me, a sinner, in recent years.

When I was still living on the estate of Prince Vladimir Davidovich, when the neighboring landowners’ estates were already being destroyed all around and the banditry of soldiers returning from the front had reached its peak, my wife and I were going though troubled times. Our only hope was in God and Batiushka Fr. Seraphim.

My wife and I read the Akathist to him daily in front of his large icon, followed by the Paraklesis to the Queen of Heaven according to the Diveyevo rule. Days passed, but we were still being left alone—except for the time when my wife and I were on the way back from church on a Sunday afternoon and a peasant caught up with us, out of breath:

“Your honor! Hey, your honor! Just wait for a minute, I need to tell you something. Listen to me: Go away, for God’s sake, from this area, because we are afraid that we won’t be able keep you safe.”

Surprised by this revelation, I began to ask him why he was thinking this way.

An old man would come out of your gate a few times threatening our guys with a stick, and this had left them so overcome with fear that they couldn’t even take a step

“How else, when our guys, I must admit, had long planned to kill you; they even waited in ambush next to your house for night to come. But then an old man, he must be your watchman, would come out of your gate threatening our guys with a stick, leaving them so overcome with fear they couldn’t even take a single step. So, they realized that all this was for some reason. Fearing trouble, we decided not to touch you for some time to come, but now we’ve had enough. The neighboring villagers pester us, saying that we protect the landlords. We’re afraid that we won’t be able to hold them off, so you just kinda do us a favor—go somewhere far away.”

Astonished by his story, I thanked him for the advice, knowing full well who has been our protector and rescuer from certain death. My wife and I took the peasant’s words as an order from above and quietly began preparing for our departure.⁴

Is. 63:16-17, 19; 64:2–7 / Ps. 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19 / 1 Cor. 1:3-9 / Mk. 13:33-37

The new Church year begins with a plea for God’s visitation. “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,” the prophet Isaiah cries in Sunday’s First Reading. In Sunday’s Psalm, too, we hear the anguished voice of Israel, imploring God to look down from his heavenly throne to save and shepherd his people.

The readings this week are relatively brief. Their language and “message” are deceptively simple. But we should take note of the serious mood and penitential aspect of the liturgy today — as the people of Israel recognize their sinfulness, their failures to keep God’s covenant, their inability to save themselves.

And in this Advent season, we should see our own lives in the experience of Israel. As we examine our consciences, can’t we, too, find that we often harden our hearts, refuse his rule, wander from his ways and withhold our love from him?

God is faithful, Paul reminds us in the Epistle this week. He is our Father. He has hearkened to the cry of his children, coming down from heaven for Israel’s sake and for ours to redeem us from our exile from God, to restore us to his love.

In Jesus, we have seen the Father (see John 14:8-9). The Father has let his face shine upon us. He is the good shepherd (see John 10:11-15) come to guide us to the heavenly kingdom. No matter how far we have strayed, he will give us new life if we turn to him, if we call upon his holy name, if we pledge anew never again to withdraw from him.

As Paul says this week, he has given us every spiritual gift — especially the Eucharist and penance — to strengthen us as we await Christ’s final coming. He will keep us firm to the end — if we let him.

So, in this season of repentance, we should heed the warning — repeated three times by our Lord in the Gospel this week — to be watchful, for we know not the hour when the Lord of the house will return.

The Adoration of the Magi. Detail from an icon of the Laudation of the Mother of God (with Akathist). 16th c.     

How did the The Shepherds, the Magi, and UsIf you pledge, don’t hedge. If you have called yourself a Christian, then obey Christ. Otherwise your inner Herod, your old man, will enslave you. If you have come to bow to Christ today, do not turn your back on Him tomorrow.

“>Magi prepare for their trip? Now, at the beginning of the The Nativity FastThe Nativity Fast”>Nativity fast, is the best time to ask this question.

Of course, they did so scrupulously and in a timely manner. After all, no small distance lay ahead of them, and it was important for them to travel at a good pace, not falling behind the guiding star.

We also set out on the first day of the Nativity fast for our journey; and doesn’t our path lead us to the cave in Bethlehem?

This means that now is the optimal time to gather our thoughts, to think ahead as we set out on our journey, what we must bring with us, what we can’t do without on the way and without which we are not likely to reach our goal.

First of all, we will not reach our destination without a guide. It follows that we must put the Gospels in our backpack. And every day during our prayer rule we must read: one chapter, the daily Gospel reading, as much as we can but consistently, every day. Otherwise, how will we reach our destination if we don’t know the way?

Then we need, especially when we travel in winter, to light a fire in order to warm ourselves. This fire, which drives away ice and darkness, will be spiritual reading: Some will put What is the Spiritual Life, and How to be Attuned to It by Theophan the Recluse

“>St. Theophan the Recluse, in their backpacks, others will take Instructions by St. Paisios the AthonitePaisios the Athonite, St.”>St. Paisius the Hagorite under their arms, yet others will grab the Letters of Igumen Nikon Vorubiev. Everyone will find a book according taste—the main thing is to stoke the fire in time, to keep up our zeal, fervency, and haleness of spirit.

We must definitely store up food—our prayer rule

We must definitely store up food—our How Should We Build Our Prayer Rule?It is impossible to imagine a meaningful Christian life without a daily prayer rule. But what should this prayer rule be? How long or short, and consisting of which prayers? How can we prevent our daily prayer rule from becoming purely a formality? What should we pay particular attention to, and what mistakes should we avoid? And what is the most important thing in a prayer rule?

“>prayer rule. And we must teach ourselves to perform it thoughtfully, with concentration, with the heart. Otherwise, how will we arrive if the soul gets weak from hunger?

How good it would be if we were to include in our consistent prayers texts that would gradually prepare us for the Nativity, and tune us to the feast. This could be fragments from the Akathist to the Nativity or extracts from the liturgical texts of the Forefeast for the Nativity (you can find them in the Menaion for December).

For example, texts such as these will help:

“Come let us worship the Divine Infant, and let us bring Him gifts: faith like gold, hymns like pleasant incense, and pure love like myrrh, to Him Who was pleased to be born in the flesh for our sakes.”

“O people, let us prepare for the feast of Christ’s Nativity, and raising our minds to Bethlehem, let us be raised up in thought, and we shall see the Virgin with the eyes of our souls, going to give birth in the cave to our God and Lord of all.”

“Now the time draws near for our salvation; prepare yourself O cave: the Virgin draws nigh to give birth. O Bethlehem, land of Judah, exalt and be glad, for from thee has our Lord shone forth. Hear O mountains and hills, and all the lands of Judea, for Christ Who created thee is coming to save thee, as He is the Lover of Mankind.”

You just repeat them and you feel happier, warmer in your soul; your hands grasp your staff more firmly, and the trees along the road blink by more quickly.

We’re not going just anywhere, we’re going to meet Christ—and the heart rejoices.

But what do we have with us? Only ourselves, or do we have Gifts to place in the Manger?

Do we hear the Church’s call?

Come let us worship the Divine Infant, and let us bring Him gifts: faith like gold, and hymns like pleasant incense, and pure love like myrrh, to Him Who was pleased to be born in the flesh for our sakes.”

Faith, incense, and myrrh.

Faith is more or less understood; with faith we set out on this path, and with faith we walk it.

Hymns like incense—yes, we gladly nod our heads, we have even chosen a prayer rule for the fast. And now, now when we are inspired by the thought that prayer during the course of the fast can become one of our gifts to Christ, we make every effort to have pure incense, unadulterated and fragrant.

What’s left is the myrrh—love. Of course, we’re not talking about sentimental sighs at the sight of a Christmas card. It’s all too serious for that. After all, we remember that myrrh is a burial oil—that same myrrh that the Myrrh-Bearers brought.

So, what is the connection between it and love?

Fr. Vsevolod Shpiller wrote:

“We, true Christians, should yearn to die with Christ, die to our sins, so that we might be resurrected with Him! Our love for Christ can be stronger than sin, stronger than death.”

Also coming to mind are the words of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, perhaps shocking at first glance, but giving us wings if we think about it:

“The fathers say that if we were to remember that we can die in a moment—how we would run to do whatever good we can before then! If we were to think continually and tremblingly that the person standing next to us, to whom we can now do either good or evil, could die—how we would rush to take care of him! There would be no need, neither little nor great, that would surpass our ability to dedicate our lives to a person who is just about to die.”

If only we would remember that we could die in a moment, we would rush to do whatever good we can before then!

Further he tells us about his own personal experience, about his mother who was dying for three years:

“And when death entered into our life, it transformed life, in that every moment, every word, every action—because each of these could be the last—had to be a perfect expression of all love, all affection, all reverence that could be between us. And for three years, there were no trifles and no large things, but only trembling solemnity, reverent love, where everything mingles into the great; because love can be contained complete in one word, and in one movement we can express all love. And this is how it should be.”

After such words we sort of fall silent, and look back with confusion upon our own simple, narrow, and modest life.

This is very lofty. But perhaps it was best said in one story: “It’s easier to fly high than to fly low.”

We after all have entered on a path not to a toy manger under a fake Christmas tree, but to meet the Righteous Infant—the Living God. Maybe we should try to walk it in all seriousness?

If we make it our rule during the course (at least) of forty days of fasting to strive to be so reverent and affectionate, filled with awe and love toward our neighbor (at least), that the conclusion of this period will be a true transformation of soul.

And, when the journey is ended, on Christmas night, we will at last have something to place in the manger.

“Come, enter quickly,” said the Virgin once to the Magi, “and you shall behold the Invisible One, Who has appeared visibly and become a Child.” They entered with zeal, they worshipped Him, and brought Him gifts, fulfilling the divine prophecy.

St. Charles de Foucauld was born in France on September 15, 1858, to an aristocratic family. When he was six, his parents died, and he was raised by his Catholic grandfather. 

As a teenager, Charles rejected his faith, and joined the French army. He received a large inheritance from his grandfather, and lived lavishly, enjoying food and parties. When he was sent to Algeria with the army, he brought his mistress, which led to his dismissal from the unit in Algeria. He eventually resigned from the army in 1882. 

Charles went to Morocco disguised as a Jew, with the help of a rabbi. He spent a year there, and wrote a book about his experience. 

He returned to France in 1886, and began practicing his Catholic faith again. He joined a Trappist monastery in Ardeche, and then transferred to one in Akbes, Syria. In 1897, he left the monastery to work as a gardener and sacristan for the Poor Clares in Nazareth and Jerusalem. In 1901, he returned to France and was ordained a priest. 

Charles then went to Morocco, hoping to found a religious community that offered hospitality to all. No one joined him, and eventually a former army friend invited him to Algeria, to live with the Tuareg people. 

Charles learned the native language, and wrote a Tuareg-French and French-Tuareg dictionary. He also translated the Gospels into Tuareg. A two-volume collection of his Tuareg poetry was published after he died. 

In 1905, Charles came to Tamanrasset, where he spent the rest of his life. While visiting France to 1909, he established an association of laypeople who pledged to live according to the Gospels. 

During World War I, attacks were made on the French living in Algeria. Charles and two visiting French soldiers were seized by another tribe during a raid and were shot and killed on December 1, 1916. 

Charles de Foucauld was beatified on November 13, 2005. In May 2020, Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to Blessed Charles’ intercession, which paved the way for his canonization on May 15, 2022.

“As you can see, I am alive,” Pope Francis told a group of health care managers Nov. 30.

At the brief meeting with participants in a seminar on the ethics of health care management, the pope said he was suffering from a “bronchial condition. Thank God it was not pneumonia,” but he said it was a very serious bronchial infection.

“I no longer have a fever, but I am still on antibiotics and things like that,” he told the group.

He had canceled his appointments Nov. 25 because of “flu-like symptoms” and went that afternoon to a Rome hospital for a CT scan of his chest. In the following days, he canceled some appointments and had aides read his prepared texts at other events.

But, he said, “the doctor would not let me go to Dubai,” United Arab Emirates, Dec. 1-3 to speak at COP28, the U.N. climate conference. “The reason is that it is very hot there, and you go from heat to air conditioning,” he told the health care managers.

The most recent medical bulletin from the Vatican press office, issued late Nov. 29, said Pope Francis’ condition is “stable. He does not have a fever, but the pulmonary inflammation associated with respiratory difficulty persists. He is continuing antibiotic therapy.”

Pope Francis used the audience to thank medical professional for what they do — “not only looking for medical, pharmacological solutions,” but also putting energy into preventative care so their patients stay healthy.

“I thank you for coming,” he told the group, “and forgive me for not being able to talk any more, but I do not have the energy.”

When three members of St. Ann Parish in East Baltimore sat down with leaders of the ‘Dicastery’ for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican in late October to advocate for sainthood for six Black potential saints from the United States, they shared their personal experiences of being Black and Catholic.

“One of the things that we wanted to make clear, you know, just looking at the three of us, is that we’re the last generation to have openly experienced the personal side of the white supremacy that existed in the Catholic Church in those days,” said Ralph Moore, a member of St. Ann who has been spearheading an effort to get “the saintly six” canonized quickly.

He said that he and fellow travelers Dolores Moore (no relation) and Mary Sewell can remember being told to sit in the back pews of their churches. “We were told to wait till all the white folks in the congregation that day received Communion first,” he said.

He recalled white ushers blocking the holy water fonts so that Blacks could not bless themselves upon entering the church, but they stepped aside so whites could use the font.

“We wanted them to understand that we know, and we have felt this thing, this racial prejudice and discrimination thing, and that the fact that there are no Black saints (from the U.S.), it’s hurtful to us,” Ralph Moore told the Catholic Review, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The potential saints in question include one with ties to Baltimore, Mother Mary Lange, who has the title “venerable,” the founder of the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, the world’s first sustained religious community for Black women.

Other Blacks from the United States under consideration are Sister Thea Bowman, the first African American to become a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and Julia Greeley, known as the city of Denver’s “Angel of Charity” — who both have the title “servant of God.” Three others who have been declared “venerable” are Mother Henriette Delille, founder of the New Orleans-based Sisters of the Holy Family; Father Augustus Tolton, the first Catholic priest in the U.S. known publicly to be Black; and Pierre Toussaint, a noted philanthropist.

The Baltimore visitors had an audience with the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints Oct. 31.

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the dicastery, joined the meeting at the beginning and end. Michaelite Father Boguslaw Stanislaw Turek, undersecretary for the dicastery, and an interpreter from the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, who works at the dicastery, Father Patrick Dorelus, met for about two hours with the trio from Baltimore.

“We felt it was beneficial to have somebody who is African American as we were, but who could speak Italian and understood the way that the dicastery works,” he said of Father Dorelus.

Ralph Moore said it is hard for Black Catholics in the U.S. to understand why there are white saints from this country but none who are Black. “When you read and study the lives of these particular (potential) saints and they represent us, it just feels like — whether it’s accidental or intentional — it feels like rejection.”

He said they shared with Father Turek some of the background on the six, including some information that Vatican officials seemed not to know, such as that Mother Mary Lange and her Oblates could have been killed for teaching enslaved children, or that Father Tolton was on a streetcar on his way home from a priests’ retreat when he died of heat stroke.

He said the undersecretary showed the Baltimore visitors a wall of books containing a number of “positios,” or comprehensive summary of all documentation for a potential saint’s cause.

The group brought a few hundred of the more than 3,000 letters that have been received in support of the canonization of the six. “We were trying to personalize the lives of these people a little bit and personalize what it means to not only to Black Catholics, but especially to Black Catholics, but also there are many whites who sign the letter who don’t want to be in a church where Black Catholic saints are not recognized,” Ralph Moore said.

“We think that all six of them have been people for others with their lives, with their charitable work, with their courageous educational work,” he added.

Since there are separate groups working on each of the individual causes, Ralph Moore said one of the concerns is that each may want their candidate to be the first to break the barrier for sainthood. He would prefer that all six be canonized at the same time, but he understands that they may be done individually. “We think of them as persons for others, not persons for themselves,” he said.

He said he is glad to have the support of leaders in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, including Auxiliary Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, urban vicar, who has celebrated an All Saints’ Day Mass at St. Ann for the saintly six, and who blessed the letters being sent to Rome. They also received a pilgrim’s blessing the Sunday before they left for Rome from Archbishop William E. Lori, who also sent a letter of support to the Vatican.

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) sided with a prior ruling that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) illegally withheld federal funds from low-income LA Catholic school students.

The federal government’s Nov. 16 ruling affirmed the California Department of Education’s decision in 2021 that LAUSD had failed to “accurately count the number of children from low-income families” attending schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and meaningfully consult with the archdiocese on those discrepancies.

The new ruling would restore millions of dollars in federal money that goes to low-income students attending LA-area Catholic schools that qualify for Title I funding.

In a decision shared with media Nov. 30, the USDE ordered LAUSD to take corrective actions, including working with the archdiocese to analyze and recalculate Title I-eligible schools and students, identify services to be provided, and to implement the amenities within 90 days, or a later agreed-upon date.

Once those recalculations have been made, restitution for past years can be determined.

“For years, many low-income students attending Catholic schools in the boundaries of the LAUSD have been deprived of vital educational services, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are legally eligible for,” said Paul Escala, senior director and superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “We trust this decision will result in a restoration of services for thousands of students in our schools which are needed now more than ever.”

The archdiocese filed a complaint in September 2019 after it said LAUSD had reduced the number of Catholic schools eligible for Title I funding to 17 after more than 100 schools had qualified in previous years. The archdiocese appealed to CDE and the department sided with ADLA in June 2021. The archdiocese filed a lawsuit in December 2021, alleging LAUSD had not taken corrective action.

The district appealed to the U.S. Department of Education and the lawsuit had been on hold until USDE issued its ruling. With November’s ruling, the lawsuit would end.

According to the California Department of Education report, in the three years prior to 2019, LAUSD received an annual average of around $291 million in Title I funds and distributed between 2% and 2.6% among private schools. But in the 2019-20 school year, when it cut the Catholic recipients from 102 to 17, the district had received more than $349 million for Title I — an increase over earlier years — but distributed less than 0.5% among private schools.

The total amount shared with private schools dropped from roughly $7.5 million to $1.7 million, according to the report. Catholic schools reported receiving about $190,000 or 11% of the total for private schools.

The archdiocese said it had traditionally utilized Title I funds to provide special teachers, counseling and extra assistance to struggling, low-income students.

The loss of those teachers and counselors “has prevented those students from having the supplemental learning that they need in order to maintain grade-level performance, and also to deal with the remedies necessary to close the gap on any learning losses they experienced due to the pandemic,” Escala said in 2021.

The archdiocese’s Department of Catholic Schools is the largest system of non-public schools in the nation, with 250 elementary and high schools and more than 68,000 students.

LAUSD now has 60 days to provide documentation to the state of what corrective actions have been taken, and California Department of Education must inform the USDE on what those steps are within 75 days.

The journey of reconciliation between Catholics and Orthodox began with an embrace almost 60 years ago, a sign of how important personal contact and time spent together are in the search for Christian unity, Pope Francis said.

In a letter to Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople for the Nov. 30 feast of St. Andrew, the patriarchate’s patron saint, Pope Francis focused on the anniversary of the meetings of St. Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem Jan. 5-6, 1964.

Their meeting, the pope said, “was a vital step forward in breaking down the barrier of misunderstanding, distrust and even hostility that had existed for almost a millennium.”

Today, he continued, people do not remember the statements of “those two prophetic pastors” as much as “their warm embrace.”

“Indeed, it is highly significant that this journey of reconciliation, increasing closeness and overcoming of obstacles still impeding full visible communion, began with an embrace, a gesture that eloquently expresses the mutual recognition of ecclesial fraternity,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter delivered by a delegation led by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

“With God’s help, we have been able to continue along the path laid out by our venerable predecessors, renewing many times the joy of meeting and embracing each other,” the pope wrote to Patriarch Bartholomew.

The pope and the patriarch send delegations to the celebrations of each other’s patron feast days. The patriarchate’s delegation meets with the pope and attends Mass each year for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29.

In addition to personal contact, Pope Francis said that “friendly dialogue, common prayer and joint action in service to humanity, especially those affected by poverty, violence, and exploitation” help members of different churches discover “their shared trust in the loving providence of God the Father, their hope in the coming of the kingdom inaugurated by Jesus Christ, and their common desire to exercise the virtue of charity inspired by the Holy Spirit.”

Addressing Patriarch Bartholomew as his “beloved brother in Christ,” Pope Francis also prayed for the world, especially “that the clamor of arms, which brings only death and destruction, may cease, and that government and religious leaders may always seek the path of dialogue and reconciliation.”

In response to demands for proof that Bishop Rolando Álvarez is still alive, the Nicaraguan dictatorship’s Ministry of the Interior released new images of the prelate, who was sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison in February, accused of being “a traitor to the homeland.”

The measure was strongly criticized by Bishop Silvio Báez, who pointed out that the video and photos do not justify the regime’s crime.

Báez, the auxiliary bishop of Managua living in exile, wrote on X on Nov. 28 that the dictatorship shouldn’t think “that with their cynical language and with photos and videos of dubious authenticity they are going to justify their crime and silence us.”

“Bishop Rolando Álvarez is INNOCENT and we will continue to shout this injustice before the world. He must be released immediately and without conditions!” he exclaimed.

Other images had been previously released by the dictatorship in March, when various activists and institutions demanded, as they have been doing recently, proof that the bishop of Matagalpa was still alive.

In a Nov. 28 press release, the Ministry of the Interior stated that the video and photos show that “the conditions of [Álvarez’s] confinement are preferential and that the regimen of doctor’s appointments is strictly complied with as well as family visits, the sending and receiving of packages, contrary to what slanderous campaigns try to make you believe.”

The statement also says that the Ministry of the Interior “will continue to fulfill its duty to safely hold Rolando Álvarez in the conditions that ensure his rights in every sense.”

Also shown are photos dating from March 25, May 13, July 28, Aug. 31, Oct. 2, and Nov. 2, where he is seen with his brothers, and other photos where he appears to be receiving medical care.

Images raise renewed concerns

The video shows the thinner, motionless prisoner seated as he blankly stares at a TV set in a living room with furniture and a table with various items on it.

Martha Patricia Molina — lawyer, researcher, and author of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?” — also questioned the images: “The same setting serves as a clinic, living room, dining room. Can someone explain that to me? Do they only change things around for photos?”

Félix Maradiaga, deported former presidential candidate and president of the Nicaraguan Freedom Foundation living in exile in the United States, dismissed the images released by the Nicaraguan dictatorship and expressed his concern for the bishop, noting that these were “presented as a response to complaints about the inhumane and arbitrary conditions of his imprisonment and are a clear attempt to distort reality.”

“We understand that these photographs do not reflect the true situation of Bishop Álvarez. Their appearance, coinciding with international efforts demanding proof he’s alive and the pronouncements of important entities such as the United States Congress and the European Parliament, demonstrates the dictatorship’s intention to create a false impression of normality,” he stressed in a statement sent to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

Maradiaga urged the international community to remain “vigilant” and “not be fooled by these maneuvers.” At the same time he asked it “to continue demanding the immediate and just release of Bishop Rolando Álvarez and all political prisoners in Nicaragua. The fight for justice and truth must continue relentlessly.”

In 2021 in the midst of running for president, Maradiaga was arrested by the Ortega regime and spent 20 months in prison before he was deported to the U.S. in February along with 221 other political prisoners in a deal with the U.S. State Department.