Tag: Christianity

For those who knew the strange story of Juan Gutierrez’s ankle, or even parts of it, the word “miracle” was hard not to think of.

A fluke basketball injury. Faulty medical advice. Unexpected inspirations during prayer. A sudden healing. The surprising involvement of the Vatican.

While the news of Gutierrez’s unexplained recovery from a torn Achilles tendon got out, it didn’t really get around, at least not far beyond where the story started: St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, where Juan and other future priests for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and other Catholic dioceses in the western U.S. are trained.

The event was remarkable enough to be noticed by just enough people, while Gutierrez’s modest, shy demeanor seemed to divert any further attention from it.

But this odd combination of circumstances would eventually prove providential, confounding medical authorities, changing the life of this anonymous seminarian, and forever tying him to another young man who had been dead for almost 100 years: Pier Giorgio Frassati, who in August will be declared a saint of the Catholic Church on account of the miracle of Juan Gutierrez’s ankle. 

• • •

This odd tale begins in Texcoco, a city on the peripheries of Mexico City, where Juan Manuel Gutierrez was born in 1986. His parents separated when he was 2, but after high school, he immigrated to the U.S. to join his father in Omaha. 

It was there that, after being invited to a weekend retreat, he experienced a return to the Catholic faith of his youth that he’d fallen away from. Soon, he found himself unable to shake the feeling that he was being called to the priesthood, and eventually wound up applying to enter the seminary in Los Angeles. 

In 2013, he began college studies at the archdiocese’s Juan Diego House of Formation in Gardena. Graduating in 2017, he and his classmates moved to St. John’s Seminary to continue formation.

Every Monday, Gutierrez soon learned, St. John’s seminarians went to play basketball at a nearby gym in Camarillo. While not exactly an athlete, he’d always enjoyed sports as a youth, especially basketball and soccer, and the chance to compete again was a perk of seminary life for Gutierrez.

On Sept. 25, 2017, Gutierrez stepped onto the court: “I didn’t really warm up” that day, he remembered.

A few minutes into the game, Gutierrez had a feeling like someone had bumped into his right ankle, followed by a sound: “Pop!” 

“When I heard the pop, I turned around and nobody was there,” Gutierrez recalled. “Like, absolutely nobody.”

What he did notice was that he couldn’t walk normally anymore. He headed for the bench and got a ride back to St. John’s.

Gutierrez remembered thinking that the injury “wasn’t that bad.” But the pain he began to feel didn’t let him sleep much that night. For a few days, he pushed himself to go to class and follow the seminary prayer schedule. But when another seminarian decided to go to the hospital to get an injury looked at, Gutierrez realized he had better join him.

At the hospital, the X-ray didn’t show any broken bones. A doctor prescribed painkillers, telling Gutierrez he had most likely pulled a muscle.

Back at the seminary, one of Gutierrez’s classmates had noticed him limping: Rene Haarpaintner was a widower in his 50s who’d left his medical practice to enter the seminary. He was still a licensed chiropractor, and suggested that Gutierrez walk with crutches to allow the pulled muscle to heal.

“It was bad,” remembered Haarpaintner, who was ordained a priest in 2023, a year after Gutierrez. “It was swollen everywhere and I could not really palpate (touch) much of it because the swelling was so big, everything was blue.”

When Gutierrez’s pain worsened over the next few weeks, Haarpaintner gave Gutierrez some stretching exercises to try.

Gutierrez dutifully complied, even though the stretches proved painful — really painful. 

As Gutierrez’s pain got worse, Haarpaintner guessed he had suffered ligament damage. But that would take an MRI to confirm and the earliest appointment available was Oct. 31, which was almost three weeks away at that point.

In the meantime, Haarpaintner suggested that Gutierrez stay off his foot completely. He got through the month with an air cast he bought at the local pharmacy, and a makeshift brace. On Halloween morning, he drove himself to the radiology lab for the MRI.

Hours later, as Gutierrez was opening the gate to the seminary, his phone rang. It was the doctor.

When he saw the caller ID, “I knew that something was really wrong,” Gutierrez said. “I didn’t even say hello to him. I just picked up and said, ‘It’s bad, huh?’ ”

He had guessed correctly: “You have a tear in your Achilles.”

The doctor told Gutierrez to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, and that surgery would be his best option.

A sense of dread came over the seminarian. Surgery would mean a long, painful road to recovery. His schoolwork would no doubt suffer, and how was he going to pay for the procedure? He still hadn’t told his family in Nebraska or in Mexico about the injury.

Gutierrez spent that night in his room Googling “Achilles injuries.” The pictures of blood and stories of infections associated with tendon surgery only made him feel more anxious.

• • •

The next day, Nov. 1, was the day the Catholic Church celebrates “All Saints’ Day,” remembering all the holy men and women in heaven. After Mass in the seminary chapel, Gutierrez stayed behind. His heart was heavy from the latest news.

“I was there, I was praying, and then at the end, I was like, you know, I think I need help from above,” he recalled. “I was having this conversation with myself in my head.”

At some point, the thought entered: “Well, why don’t you make a novena?”

It wasn’t a strange idea. Growing up, Gutierrez had prayed plenty of the nine-day devotions to different saints. Novenas aren’t “magic,” he’d come to believe, but “a journey of faith and prayer.”

For Gutierrez, the question was: who do I pray to? Then the conversation did take an odd turn.

“I had this whisper in my head that tells me: ‘Why don’t you make it to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati?’ I just remember thinking, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.’ ”

It was a peculiar thought, given that Gutierrez didn’t exactly have any personal devotion to Frassati. He’d been introduced to Frassati in the same way he’d learned about so many other saints, through YouTube videos.

Frassati had been born in Turin, Italy, in 1901 to Alfredo Frassati, a journalist (and later, a politician and diplomat) who founded the major Italian newspaper La Stampa, and Adelaide Ametis, a respected painter.

His father was an agnostic, but Frassati early on developed a deep devotion to the Eucharist, began attending daily Mass, and spending long hours of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. An avid outdoorsman and mountain climber, he would eventually spend much of his own fortune to help the local poor. 

He died in 1925, a few days after falling ill with polio, which he probably contracted while visiting sick people in a slum area of Turin. He was just 24 years old. 

Hundreds of the city’s poor followed his coffin during his funeral procession, and within a few years a movement began to have him declared a saint. Frassati became associated with the phrase “verso l’alto” (meaning “to the heights” in Italian), which he wrote on a photograph of his last climb.

Among his admirers was St. Pope John Paul II. 

John Paul, a skier, a hiker, and an outdoorsman himself, found a kindred spirit in the idealistic and energetic young Frassati. 

He held him up often as a role model for how young Catholics can follow Jesus in a complicated and changing world. 

“He was a modern youth,” the pope told a gathering of young people in 1983, “open to the problems of culture, sports, to social questions, to the true values of life, and at the same time a profoundly believing man, nourished by the Gospel message, deeply interested in serving his brothers and sisters, and consumed in an ardor of charity that drew him close to the poor and the sick. He lived the Gospel beatitudes.” 

When Frassati’s remains were moved to the Cathedral of Turin in 1981, his body was found incorrupt, that is, showing none of the ordinary signs of decay after death. 

In 1987, John Paul declared him “Blessed,” beatifying him after the Vatican recognized the healing of a man from tuberculosis who prayed to Frassati as a miracle attributed to his intercession.

And so it was on that fateful All Saints’ day in 2017 that Gutierrez came back to the chapel to start the novena to Blessed Frassati, praying it during the time set aside for seminarians to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. 

At no point during the novena did he ask to be healed, he stressed.

“My prayer was, ‘Lord, through the intercession of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, I ask you to help me in my injury.’ ”

Gutierrez said he would have ended the prayer there, before praying the usual rosary to accompany the novena.

But at that moment on that first day, he had what he calls another “inspiration,” to follow up that prayer with a declaration: “…and I promise that, if anything unusual happens, I will report it to whomever I need to report it to.”

“That part did surprise me,” recalled Gutierrez. “I’m like, where did that come from?”

It would prove to be a thought worth holding. Because unusual things were about to happen. 

• • •

A few days later, Gutierrez entered the chapel to pray his novena. It wasn’t during the usual 5 p.m. Holy Hour, he remembered, because nobody else was there this time. 

He recalled feeling “a warmth around the area of my injury” as he knelt and was praying.

“It was gentle,” Gutierrez said. “But it would increase little by little, and at some point I thought that an outlet of the electrical was catching fire. And I was looking for the fire. And there was no fire there. So I just remember looking at my ankle and thinking, ‘That’s so strange’ because I could feel the warmth.”

Gutierrez knew from his past experiences with the Charismatic Renewal movement that heat is sometimes associated with God’s healing. Gutierrez looked up toward the tabernacle holding the Blessed Sacrament. He began to cry.

“I told the Lord in my heart, ‘It cannot be. Not because you don’t have the power to heal me, but because I know that I don’t have the faith for something like this.’ And that moved me.”

His tears having dried and his prayers finished, Gutierrez left the chapel. He doesn’t remember exactly what day the mysterious experience took place, only that there were a few days left before Nov. 9, when his novena was set to conclude.

He does remember that after that day, he stopped wearing the brace used to keep his right foot immobilized: “I just didn’t need it anymore.”

Gutierrez had an appointment scheduled for Nov. 15 with an orthopedic surgeon. At some point, he realized that he was not even thinking about his injury anymore.

• • •

On Nov. 15, inside his downtown LA office, the orthopedic surgeon asked his new patient what he did for a living.

“I’m a seminarian, which means I’m studying to be a priest,” Gutierrez explained.

To confirm the diagnosis of a torn Achilles indicated by the MRI images, the surgeon conducted something called the Thompson test, which involved squeezing the patient’s calf as he laid face-down on the hospital bed. If the foot moved when he squeezed, that would mean the tendon was connected. If it didn’t, it would confirm the tear.

“Hmm,” Gutierrez heard the surgeon mutter after squeezing. Then the surgeon pressed his thumb on the place where the MRI showed the tear.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

Gutierrez felt a slight sensation of muscle soreness, but no pain. The doctor asked if he could press harder, and then harder again. Still Gutierrez felt no pain. 

Sitting back up, he noticed a puzzled look on the surgeon’s face. Pressing directly on the area of the tear, he’d expected to feel the gap with his thumb, something Gutierrez had felt the couple of times he had dared to examine his ankle.

“You have no gap,” the surgeon said. “You must have somebody up there looking after you.”

A chill went down Gutierrez’s spine. He remembered the novena. Then he began to pepper the doctor with questions.

Could the gap have closed on its own? No, the doctor replied, in fact, they tend to open even more over time. What if the MRI was wrong? No way. “This is the most advanced piece of technology we have for something like this.”

Pointing to the screen, the surgeon told the seminarian, “As of Oct. 31, you had a tear in your Achilles, but now I can’t find it.”

• • •

At the time, Gutierrez wanted to tell everybody about this strange development. But he was afraid of drawing too much attention to himself. He resolved to only tell a few of those close to him.

At St. John’s, his fellow students noticed that he was no longer limping and no longer wearing the brace. When they asked him about it, he kept his answers simple, saying only that a doctor had told him he didn’t need surgery after all. The fact that he hadn’t made a big deal about his injury in the first place helped tamp down on further questions

“Juan’s a pretty low-key guy,” said Father Tommy Green, a classmate of Gutierrez’s who was ordained a priest in 2024. “It kind of just fell off the radar.”

Within a few weeks, Gutierrez was jogging, and ready to move on with seminary studies and normal life. He only confided about the healing to his spiritual director and a few close friends. As far as he was concerned, the story was over.

Then he got a reminder about the second part of his novena prayer.

Gutierrez was wandering the exhibit hall at a youth conference a few months later when he came across a booth featuring a life-size photo cutout of Frassati. The booth was unattended. Taking some Frassati prayer cards, he noticed on the back an email address where people could send stories of favors they had received through Frassati’s intercession.

He remembered his promise: “If anything unusual happens, I will report it to whomever I need to report it to.”

He put it off for a few months, but eventually sat down to type his testimony and email it.

“To me, that day was the end of it: I fulfilled my promise to Pier Giorgio that I would report it,” recalled Gutierrez.

He never received a reply to his email. Once again, he thought the story was over. 

Two years passed, it was now the fall of 2020, and he found himself sitting at St. John’s in a class being taught by Msgr. Robert Sarno, an American priest who had recently retired after nearly 40 years at the Vatican’s Dicastery of the Causes of the Saints.

The subject of the course? The diocesan phase of canonization causes.

“I was like, ‘Oh snap,’ maybe there’s something here that will make me tell my testimony about my experience with Pier Giorgio to somebody, ” Gutierrez thought.

When the class turned to the subject of how the Church investigates claims of miraculous healings, the thought of approaching Sarno with his story only made Gutierrez more nervous. He could picture the straight-talking Brooklyn priest brusquely dismissing his tale as a “nice story.”

“Jesus, give me courage to say something about this because I personally don’t want to,” Gutierrez prayed.

• • •

One day after breakfast, Gutierrez worked up the courage to approach Sarno and tell him his story.

Sarno looked at him and asked, “Why did you wait this long to tell me this story?’

“Because you’re very intimidating,” the seminarian replied.

“Yeah, I’ve been told that before” Msgr. Sarno said.

At dinnertime the same day, Msgr. Sarno approached Gutierrez to tell him that Rome was “very interested” in his story.

In an interview with Angelus, Msgr. Sarno said, “It was the last thing that I had expected, that in this course that I was teaching in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, there could be a potential miracle for the canonization of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.” 

After talking to Dr. Silvia Correale, J.C.D., the Argentine-born lawyer who was heading up Frassati’s canonization cause in Rome, Msgr. Sarno suggested to Gutierrez that it would be “prudent” not to speak about his experience to anyone else. 

The reason was that Msgr. Sarno had been given the “green light” to initiate a diocesan-level canonical investigation into Gutierrez’s case. Msgr. Sarno worked on the sainthood causes of such legendary figures as Sts. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Damien of Molokai, among others. 

Explaining the caution he gave to Gutierrez, Msgr. Sarno told Angelus: “You don’t want to prejudice the witnesses of a potential investigation. You want to keep all the witnesses completely free to be examined without any restrictions or coloring or, bias, if you will, in the case.”

From there, the process began to move. Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez authorized Sarno to head up the archdiocese’s investigation of Gutierrez’s story. 

Two LA priests were appointed to help with the judicial process, and in the fall of 2023, Sarno returned to St. John’s to interview witnesses and gather evidence, including doctor’s notes, the initial MRI scan, and other documents.

Among the seminarians interviewed was the chiropractor, Haarpaintner.

Because the doctors who examined Gutierrez at the hospital had missed that it was a torn tendon, Haarpaintner testified, it is likely that his recommended stretching exercises had actually made that tear worse. This, he believed, made a sudden recovery even more improbable from a medical standpoint.

Haarpaintner said it was a lesson in humility when he was also asked to speak over Zoom to a Vatican medical panel investigating the possible miracle.

He said a surgeon on the call told him, “You screwed up, you aggravated the injury by putting his foot in plantar flexion.”

“Yes, I did, sorry, I did!” Haarpaintner remembered answering. 

“Can you imagine what that was like for my vanity? Not good,” joked Haarpaintner, whose hometown in Switzerland is a few hours’ drive from Blessed Frassati’s native Turin.

“This is the best case of malpractice in the eyes of God, that’s for sure.”

By the time Sarno submitted his findings to the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints, he felt confident that he had stumbled upon the miracle that everyone was waiting for in the case.

“I believe in Divine Providence,” Msgr. Sarno said, “And there are just too many accidents in this case.”

On Nov. 20, the Vatican announced that Frassati would be canonized next Aug. 3 during the 2025 Jubilee Year celebration for young people, following the canonization of Blessed Carlo Acutis, another Italian youth known for his deep love for the Eucharist and the poor. Five days later, Pope Francis formally approved the second miracle attributed to Frassati’s intercession.  

While the canonization of Acutis was widely expected for next year’s jubilee, the Frassati news came as “a great and happy surprise” to those familiar with his cause, including Msgr. Sarno.

“The fact that Pier Giorgio’s canonization will happen during the 100th anniversary of his death, plus during the holy year of 2025, plus the fact that Carlo Acutis will be canonized during the jubilee weekend for teenagers, Pier Giorgio during the one for young adults … you can’t say that that’s not Divine Providence either,” said Msgr. Sarno.

• • •

With the strange story of Gutierrez’s ankle now officially recognized as a miracle and the secrecy surrounding his healing gone, the 38-year-old priest is ready to introduce his saintly friend to new generations.

Since his ordination in 2022, Father Gutierrez has served as associate pastor at St. John the Baptist Church, a suburb east of Los Angeles. In another curious coincidence, the cathedral where Frassati is entombed is also named for St. John the Baptist. The parish has a heavy Hispanic and Filipino presence, with multiple ministries for young people and at least a dozen Masses every weekend. 

“I think Pier Giorgio was a great role model for what it is to be a young Catholic in the world,” said Gutierrez. “Someone who takes ownership of our Catholic identity, someone who is involved in the lived experience of the faith, not only in the walls of your church, but even beyond that.”

The experience has shown Gutierrez that when it comes to heavenly intercession, “we don’t choose the saints, the saints choose us.” 

So why did Frassati choose him, of all people? The priest hasn’t really figured it out, since he certainly doesn’t share the Italian’s wealthy background, or his athleticism. “To this day, I’m still trying to receive the miracle of becoming a hiker,” he jokes.

That said, Gutierrez sees at least one clear connection that might explain the workings of Providence.

“He was known to have a heart for the needy and the poor,” said the priest. “Maybe it wasn’t a big deal at the moment, but in my time of need, he drew near to me and he helped me. And there are a lot of people who have received graces from him. I’m not the only one.”

Photo: wikipedia.org In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Dear brothers and sisters! Today, the Orthodox Church prayerfully honors a renowned Old Testament saint—the Prophet NahumThe Holy Prophet Nahum, whose name means “God consoles,” was from the village of Elkosh (Galilee). He lived during the seventh century B.C.

“>prophet Nahum. For us, as faithful Christians, the Book of Nahum holds great significance, as it reveals God’s abundant mercy toward humanity. God is long-suffering toward us, yet His wrath is great against those who persistently resist His will and violate His commandments. The Lord is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked (Nahum 1:2–3).

The Holy Prophet Nahum, one of the twelve so-called Minor Prophets, was from Galilee, from the village of Elkosh. According to the testimony of Blessed Jerome, Elkosh was a small village in Galilee, whose ruins he personally examined. It is likely that after the Assyrian invasion, the Prophet Nahum relocated to Judah and prophesied there in the 700s B.C. He was a contemporary of the Prophet Isaiah.

The Prophet Nahum, not sparing his own life, preached, prophesied, and served the Lord God with a pure heart. The primary message of the Book of Nahum is his prophecy of the fall and destruction of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which posed a threat to the entire East. It foretells the calamities that the righteous Lord would bring upon this city and vividly describes the ultimate devastation of this great and heavily fortified metropolis. The Holy Prophet Nahum speaks with divine inspiration of God’s omnipotence, which encompasses the entire universe:

He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him (Nahum 1:4–6).

The Prophet Nahum prophesied various historical events that later came to pass. According to tradition, he died at the age of forty-five and was buried in his homeland. His book reveals the character of its author, his moral strength, and the voice he was to his contemporaries and remains for us today.

What Can the Life of the Holy Prophet Nahum Teach Us Today?

Above all, the prophet exemplifies profound devotion to God and an unwavering determination to fulfill His commands. The Book of Nahum contains solemn prophecies about the imminent downfall of the Assyrian Empire’s chief city, Nineveh.

Why did God’s wrath fall upon Nineveh? From the Old Testament, we know that the people of Nineveh had already been warned of God’s judgment by the Was the Prophet Jonah Really Swallowed by a Whale?Many Christians are inclined to interpret the story of Jonah in the Old Testament as an allegory that was never meant to be understood as actual history. However, allegories or parables in the Bible are always either said to be so, or made evident in the context. The Book of Jonah, however, is written as a historical tale with a historical prophet mentioned in II Kings 14:25 and confirmed to have existed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 12:40-41. Christ here compares the experience of Jonah to His own approaching death and resurrection.

“>Prophet Jonah, who called them to repentance and to abandon their sinful ways. The Ninevites repented temporarily after Jonah’s preaching, but seeing that the prophesied calamity did not befall them, they returned to their evil deeds, thereby again provoking God’s wrath and testing His long-suffering.

This vivid example highlights the need for continual repentance before God for our sins. While it is true that no one can live without sinning—each person being subject to passion—this does not absolve us of the duty to strive through repentance for a meeting with God and for unity with Him. The life and words of the Prophet Nahum call us to this sacred path of repentance and reconciliation with our Creator.

The Fall of Nineveh by John Martin. Photo: wikipedia.org     

Nineveh earned its fate through its idolatry, particularly its depravity and witchcraft, by which it enslaved nations. These grievous iniquities were followed by severe judgment—Nineveh and its inhabitants were destroyed by their enemies.

The bitter example of Nineveh’s fate should serve as a warning to us of the consequences that await us for a sinful and unrepentant life, which provokes our Creator to Why We Need a God of WrathThe real question therefore is not “Is the biblical God a God of wrath?”, but rather “Why is the wrath of God celebrated so widely and so emphatically in the Bible?”

“>wrath. Yet, at the same time, the Prophet Nahum, through his words of encouragement to the faithful Jews of his time, speaks across the centuries to strengthen the faithful followers of Christ. He reminds us of true worship of God, the necessity of zeal for God, and the assurance that all schemes devised against God, His people, and His Church will be overthrown. For the Church is indeed the people of God.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us turn our prayerful gaze toward the Prophet Nahum. Let us remember the dire events that followed the apostasy of the people of Nineveh. The only path available to a Christian is the path that follows Christ. This path is challenging, but it is attainable for those who hate their sins and offer repentance. Let us pray to the Prophet Nahum to grant us the same zeal for God and defense of the truth. Amen.

A scholar who has written about the moral implications of atomic weapons and now is writing a book on the historic legacy of faith of Catholics of Nagasaki, Japan, is leading the Nagasaki Bell Project.

The project is an effort to encourage U.S. Catholics to support the casting of a new bell for Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral as a sign of solidarity and faith in time for the bell to ring out on Aug. 9, 2025, the 80th anniversary of the U.S. dropping an atomic bomb on the city.

James L. Nolan Jr., the Washington Gladden 1859 professor of sociology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, was inspired to undertake the project while visiting the city in the spring of 2023 and doing research and interviews for a book he is writing on how Catholics in Nagasaki have experienced suffering through the centuries and despite that, their faith has endured and been marked by a spirit of hope.

One of the parishioners at Urakami Cathedral suggested to him that it would be wonderful if American Catholics gave a bell for the church’s left tower to replace the bell that had been destroyed in the bombing. That man said he would like to hear the new bell ringing there in his lifetime.

Nolan said he thought that was a fantastic idea, and he has been working on that project since then.

The atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki Aug. 9, 1945, left a burning hellscape in that city, leveling buildings and killing more than 70,000 people, many instantly. Others died from the lingering effects of radiation. Three days earlier the U.S. bombed Hiroshima, Japan.

The Nagasaki bomb detonated about a third of a mile from the city’s Immaculate Conception Cathedral, known as the Urakami Cathedral after the district of the city where it was built. The structure — at that time believed to be the largest Catholic church in East Asia — lay in ruins. About 8,500 of the cathedral’s 12,000 parishioners were killed.

After the bombing, Dr. Takashi Nagai, a prominent Catholic who was a physician and radiologist, encouraged people to keep the faith. While suffering from a serious head injury in the aftermath of the bombing, he cared for survivors and witnessed the bomb’s horrific effects on the dead and on the living.

He returned home to find his house destroyed and his beloved wife, Midori Moriyama, dead. Amid her charred remains, he found a melted rosary that she prayed with.

Nagai encouraged fellow Catholics to dig in the cathedral’s ruins for a bell that had called them to prayer from one of its two bell towers. While one bell was found damaged and unusable, the volunteers unearthed a second bell and found it intact and relatively unscathed, and they rang it out on Christmas Eve in 1945, offering the city’s surviving Catholics an enduring sign of hope.

A new Urakami Cathedral was rebuilt and dedicated in 1959 on that site, with that original bell in one tower, and the other tower without a bell.

Nagai became a world-famous advocate for peace and forgiveness after the war before dying of leukemia six years later.

Nagai offered an inspiring witness of faith, Nolan said. “His story is remarkable. He (Dr. Nagai) was right near the epicenter and sustained injuries. And yet despite his injuries, despite the fact that he had leukemia, and received more radiation from the bomb, he served his community. He sought to help people, and he sought to help rebuild the church (and) the community.” A sainthood cause for Nagai and his wife is underway.

As of November of this year, the Nagasaki Bell Project had raised just under $52,000 of the estimated $125,000 it will cost to cast, ship and install the large bronze bell. A foundry in St. Louis is making the new bell, which will look much like the original.

The new bell’s design will include some of the Latin that was inscribed on the original bell that Nolan said references “the years of faithful suffering and the martyrdom of the many Catholics (there) who stayed true to the faith.”

More than 400 martyrs of Japan have been recognized with beatification by the Catholic Church, and 42 have been canonized as saints.

Those beatified include 205 missionaries and hidden Christians persecuted and executed for their faith between 1598 and 1632. Pope Pius IX beatified them on May 7, 1867. Between 1603 and 1639, 188 additional priests and Catholics were persecuted and martyred. Pope Benedict XVI beatified them Nov. 24, 2008. On Feb. 5, 1597, 26 Catholics were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki. Pope Pius IX canonized them June 8, 1862.

Nagai wrote a book about the Nagasaki bombing and its aftermath, “The Bells of Nagasaki,” which he hoped would inspire people to work for peace and oppose war. In November 1945, he was invited to speak at a requiem Mass for the victims of the atomic bomb there.

He noted the history of faith of Nagasaki’s Christians, and he contended that the deaths of so many of them in the bombing ultimately could be seen as a sacrifice to God for peace.

“Our church of Urakami kept the faith during 400 years of persecution when religion was proscribed and the blood of martyrs flowed freely,” Nagai said at the Mass. “During the war, this same church never ceased to pray day and night for a lasting peace. Was it not, then, the one unblemished lamb that had to be offered on the altar of God? Thanks to the sacrifice of this lamb, many millions who would otherwise have fallen victim to the ravages of war have been saved.”

Nolan noted that Nagai offered a Catholic perspective on suffering, emphasizing the need for forgiveness and peace and the need to rebuild, instead of responding with anger, bitterness and retribution.

“That’s how he could understand the bombing as a kind of peace offering to end the war and to bring peace to the world,” Nolan told the Catholic Standard, Washington’s archdiocesan newspaper.

In the last chapter of “The Bells of Nagasaki,” Nagai issued a heartfelt plea for peace and against nuclear war, writing, “Men and women of the world, never again plan war! With this atomic bomb, war can only mean suicide for the human race. From the atomic waste, the people of Urakami confront the world and cry out: No more war! Let us follow the commandment of love and work together. The people of Urakami prostrate themselves before God and pray: Grant that Urakami may be the last atomic wilderness in the history of the world.”

The way Nagai endured suffering with faith and grace offers an example to Catholics today, Nolan said.

“You look at his life. Here is a person who lost everything. He lost his wife. He lost his health. He lost his community. He lost his job. He lost many of his friends, and he lost his church. In the midst of all of that, he remained joyful, hopeful and offered a narrative of peace and forgiveness. It’s remarkable.”

Nolan’s interest in Nagasaki’s Christians was spurred by trips to that city and to Hiroshima when he was writing “Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age.”

After his father’s death, he received a box containing the personal papers of his grandfather, Dr. James F. Nolan, an OB-GYN radiologist who served as a doctor for the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government’s top-secret World War II program to develop and deploy the first atomic bombs. Dr. Nolan was among a group of doctors, scientists and military officials who went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the month after the bombings to assess the damage.

Writing that book inspired Nolan to write a book on the history of Catholics in Nagasaki. Noting how they kept the faith during times of persecution and passed it on from generation to generation for 250 years without priests, he said, “It’s a legacy of suffering but staying faithful, and also staying hopeful.”

If the Nagasaki Bell Project is successful, Nolan hopes to be at Urakami Cathedral next August to mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by hearing the new bell ring out there. “It will be incredibly meaningful. I want to join with the parishioner who asked me and said that he wants to hear that. I do, too.”

The ringing of that new bell in the Urakami Cathedral would continue a goal of Dr. Takashi Nagai, who in “The Bells of Nagasaki” wrote about what it meant when the unearthed bell from the cathedral’s ruins rang out once again: “I pray and strive for this bell of peace to continue ringing until the last day of the world.”

St. Andrew the First-Called

“>Apostle Andrew is one of the most well-known and enigmatic figures among Christ’s disciples. A tireless traveler and preacher, he suffered martyrdom in Patras on an X-shaped cross and became the hero of The Acts of Andrew, which sometimes reads like an engaging novel. On December 13, the Church commemorates his memory.

The apocryphal apostolic acts, excluded from the New Testament canon, form an important genre in Christian history. They reflect the ideological struggle between heretics and Orthodox Christians. In the Middle Ages, the concept of authorship did not exist, and various sects deliberately attributed their doctrines to the apostles. For example, The Acts of Paul and Thecla contain a sermon by Apostle Paul prohibiting marital relations and family life, contradicting traditional Christian teachings on marriage and the epistles of the foremost apostle.

In The Acts of Andrew, one can also find a message of celibacy, which ultimately leads to the apostle’s death. However, the primary focus is on Andrew’s travels to the land of cannibals and his successful preaching among barbarians.

The narrative in The Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of Cannibals begins with the apostles drawing lots to determine where they would preach across the world. Apostle Matthias, later rescued by Andrew the First-Called, was sent to the city of cannibals, where “people ate neither bread nor drank wine but consumed human flesh and drank human blood. Anyone who came to their city was seized, blinded, and given a potion prepared through sorcery, which altered their heart and mind.”

This horrifying description reflects the traditional Roman and Byzantine (the Acts were written in Greek) perception of barbarians as mute, cruel beings devoid of reason and human likeness. The repulsive characterization of those who would later convert to the new faith highlighted the significance of the apostles’ mission, demonstrating their ability to transform even cannibals into Christians. This narrative device was widely used by Christian apologists, for whom Apostle Andrew became a “specialist” in converting cannibals.

The wicked city inhabitants captured Matthias, blinded him, and gave him the potion that turned him into a beast (this episode echoes the story of Odysseus, who avoided drinking a potion that transformed his companions into swine). Matthias was imprisoned for twenty-seven days, overhearing guards discuss his impending death and consumption by the townsfolk in three days.

Meanwhile, St. Andrew sets out to rescue the prisoner. Accompanied by his disciples, he sails on a ship piloted by Christ in the form of a beautiful youth. Along the way, Andrew teaches his companions the basics of Christianity. Upon arriving in the city of cannibals, the First-Called Apostle liberates the prisoners, leading to famine in the city. Horrific scenes unfold—residents decide by lot to kill the elderly to stave off hunger temporarily, but one barbarian offers his children instead. Andrew undergoes days of torture, dragged through the city by ropes. Eventually, the apostle performs a miracle, causing a statue in the prison to release torrents of saltwater that corrode the cannibals’ flesh.

Amazed, the pagans come to believe in the “God of the foreigner.” The Acts conclude with Andrew’s extensive sermon, the punishment of the most cruel cannibals, and the establishment of a new Christian community.

According to researcher Andrey Vinogradov, the sermon is the central element of the text, while the adventurous journey serves as a means to draw readers to the teachings of the foremost apostle.

This narrative device was employed by both Christian and ancient authors, embedding important reflections within biographies or lives of saints. The historian Plutarch, in one of his comparative biographies, explicitly states that the purpose of historical writing is to help readers choose good and avoid evil.

It’s worth noting that the apostle’s sermon is one of the least captivating sections of The Acts for modern readers. It recounts the Gospel story and the moral teachings of Christ in great detail. The Acts repeatedly emphasize that neither the apostle nor his disciples accept any payment for their work and preach extreme asceticism everywhere. They perform numerous miracles, heal the sick, exorcise demons, and raise the dead, ultimately opening the hearts of even the wildest barbarians.

Another hagiographic text from the corpus of The Acts of Andrew describes a successful mission among cannibals. The Story of Saint Chrysomeus is devoted entirely to a cannibal who encounters an angel forbidding him from harming the apostles and urging him to aid St. Andrew and his disciples. The angel transforms his savage nature into a meek one.

The transformed Chrysomeus appears before Christ’s disciples in all his terrifying grandeur: “He stood six cubits tall (2–3 meters), his face wild, his eyes blazing like fiery lamps, his teeth protruding like a wild boar’s, and his fingernails curved like sickles, while his toenails resembled those of a large lion. His appearance was so fearsome that merely seeing his face could be fatal.” Upon seeing him, St. Andrew fainted, and his companion Bartholomew called for help, while another disciple simply passed out. The barbarian, miraculously fluent in Greek, recounted the angelic vision and joined the apostles to preach in a city of Parthians.

Chrysomeus initially requested to cover his face to avoid frightening people. However, when the initial preaching efforts failed and townsfolk set wild beasts upon the Christians, Chrysomeus prayed to return to his original savage nature. He removed his face covering, tore the beasts apart before the crowd, and terrified the populace into believing in the Christian God. Afterward, Chrysomeus became meek again, resurrecting and baptizing those who had died of fear, as well as the animals he had slaughtered. His paths eventually diverged from those of the apostles.

This story depicts Andrew not only as a preacher but also as a bearer of Roman culture and civilization. A Jew by birth, he takes on the role of a Roman citizen. Christian apologists used this image to persuade imperial authorities of the faith’s value. It’s evident that Chrysomeus’ conversion doesn’t change his nature but renders it harmless and controlled. For the legend’s author, he remains a barbarian-Christian, while Andrew embodies Roman culture with an eloquent appearance and carefully constructed speech, bringing civilization to wild lands.

    

This function of Apostle Andrew is also emphasized in the legend of his cross being planted on the hills where Kiev would later arise. The Tale of Bygone Years connects this act with the subsequent spread of Christianity and culture in Rus’.

The chronicler talks about Andrew even visiting baths and marveling at the peculiar custom of using birch brooms. Although this apocryphal story is not founded on Andrew’s Life, it reflects the desire of Rus’ ancestors to transform from barbarians, as perceived by the Byzantines, into an ancient Christian cultural people preached to by the First-Called Apostle.

Ivan the Terrible also used this argument in a debate on faith with Jesuit Antonio Possevino. The Russian tsar rejected the idea that Rus’ received its faith exclusively from the Greeks, instead claiming that Christianity was first brought to Rus’ by the apostles. As we see, the image of Apostle Andrew was used even by rulers to assert their claim to being sovereigns of a Christian civilization.

“Chapel Ikons” (Treaty Oak Publishers, $25.29), a book of photographs and meditations, is a collaboration between Austin-based iconographer, landscape and portrait artist John Patrick Cobb and William Y. Penn Jr., Ph.D.

After a series of personal tragedies in 1977-1978 and in existential despair, Cobb moved to the Gulf Coast island of Port Aransas. He structurally and artistically restored an old seaman’s chapel there — known as The Chapel in the Dunes — that, in spite of several subsequent hurricanes, still stands.

A turning point occurred with his arrival in the early 1980s at Austin’s St. Edwards University and the connections he formed there with the Brothers of the Holy Cross. He discovered a spiritual community and a way of living that continues to shape him to this day.

Cobb first took a course with Dr. Penn, professor of theology and philosophy at St. Edwards, 40 years ago. They’ve been friends ever since.

Around the time he graduated in 1983, he started “writing” ikons. He purposely adopted the “ikon” (as opposed to the usual English “icon”) spelling to emphasize the grounding of his work in classical Greek and Russian traditions.

Meanwhile, Cobb built a house for his mother in Austin and moved into a neighbor’s farm, where for the next 30 years he had a studio in exchange for taking care of the owner’s cows. It was a wonderful time, he says.

An in-depth 2005 article by Ginger Geyer in the journal Image: Art, Mystery and Faith beautifully details Cobb’s influences and techniques:

The ikons are the fruit of a “personal Christianity” that had to do with the people Cobb met in the course of his daily life who seemed “well-founded, solid, important.”

“St. Peter’s Prayer of Repentance,” for example, features Mr. Brown, a well driller and plumber from New Mexico.

“Elder Dressed in White & Wearing a Golden Crown” depicts Rev. Hartness, a Presbyterian minister.

“Ms. Rose: An Ikon of Christ” (1984) celebrates a woman who worked as a janitor at the Department of Public Safety on North Lamar in Austin for more than 20 years. She cleaned bathrooms; Cobb, who worked alongside her for five years, did the floors.

In fact, Cobb often worked along with the people he depicts: clearing out thorn-spiked mesquite undergrowth, forking hay for cattle.

His baptismal triptych — “John the Baptist,” “Baptism by Water,” and “Baptism by Fire” — takes place at Hippie Hollow, a well-known swimming hole on central Texas’ Lake Travis.

Penn’s commentary is especially masterful here, demonstrating how the ikon reflects upon the Fall, good and evil, and the whole sweep of Old and New Testament salvation history.

Today, Cobb lives on a three-acre plot on Austin’s east side, near the Colorado River, with his wife, Tina, and Tina’s brother, Jesse Serrano, who suffered spinal meningitis at six months and has been unable to speak, walk, feed, or care for himself since.

Tina and John do that. And Jesse, of course, has his own ikon.

Over time the ikons came to number 27 total, including side panels. When not on display, they lie wrapped in Cobb’s cluttered studio. Transporting means loading them onto a battered pickup, strapping them down, and hitting the road.

Cobb has set up the chapel, among other places, at the HEB Laity Lodge in Texas hill country, a Presbyterian church in Dallas, and at Antelope Community College in Lancaster, California.

This last he found particularly rewarding. “Most of those students had never set foot in a church in their lives and they asked the best questions! These are the people I’m trying to reach. I loved those college kids who had something to ask of me.”

On a 2016 trip to Europe, he was captivated by the care that was taken with mounting, installing, and displaying great art. He dreamed for a time of similar treatment for his ikons — something in the Eastern Orthodox tradition with tin alcoves, say, and a multitiered iconostasis.

Then he realized he was trying to “elevate the thing out of its realm.” Nobody was prepared to take that kind of care or shoulder the expense. The makeshift wooden walls were fine. The portable chapel was just right.

The ikons, together with Penn’s meditations, merit hours of reflection. But their glory comprises more than the sheer excellence of thought, craft, and art; more than the hours spent polishing with cheesecloth, the painstakingly delicate application of gold leaf, the wrapping and unwrapping, the setting up and breaking down.

The ikons are the distillation of a whole life, based on love of neighbor, landscape, family, and community.

As if to underscore the point, they comprise a series that Cobb refuses to sell separately — or in fact to sell at all.

“They have no price. I offered them for free for years and had no takers!”

Recently, though, Birdwell Library at SMU expressed interest. Talks are ongoing.

One of my favorites, “Our Lady of Guadalupe” (2011), is modeled on Gabriela, a delicate, quiet girl you wouldn’t much notice.

But Cobb noticed her — when she was administering the Eucharist at Austin’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.

“It was in the quick glimpse of the eyes when she gave the host that one was able to recognize and apprehend this solemn moment — to see and be seen.”

Isn’t that what we all long for?

And there’s a tiny, delightful detail easily missed. This time Our Lady isn’t crushing the serpent’s head. Rather, Gabriela stands on a plastic globe pedestal inhabited by Little Joe, “the sno-cone guy from on the corner”: a sly smile on his face, arms triumphantly raised.

Aigialeia, Achaea, Greece, December 13, 2024

Photo: greekcitytimes.com     

A unique portrait of the last Byzantine emperor was recently discovered at a monastery in Greece.

In the catholicon of the Old Monastery of Taxiarches in Aigialeia, archaeologist Dr. Anastasia Koumoussi discovered a unique portrait of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos within a second layer of mid-15th century frescoes.

The frescoes showcase high artistic quality from the late Byzantine period and reflect Constantinople’s aesthetic trends.

Photo: greekcitytimes.com     

The fresco portrays a mature man in imperial regalia, wearing a luxurious loros over a light-colored sakkos, a jeweled crown, and holding a cross-topped scepter. His gold-embroidered purple mantle features medallions containing double-headed eagles with crowns—a distinctive mark of the Palaiologos family—making this the only contemporary portrait of Emperor Constantine XI during his brief reign (January 1449 to May 1453) and the last surviving imperial portrait in Byzantine monumental painting.

The artist responsible for the Katholikon’s second layer of illustrations probably originated from Mystras, the city where Emperor Constantine Palaiologos served as despot for a five-year period prior to ascending to the imperial throne. The imperial image can be linked to the extensive support his brothers provided to the monastery after their initial civil conflict (1449-1450) was settled—a resolution that came about through Emperor Constantine’s mediation.

“This portrait is connected to the last Byzantine emperor and represents the only one of him made during his lifetime. The painter must have captured the portrait features of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos from direct observation, meaning his model wasn’t an official imperial portrait, as was customary, but the emperor himself,” said Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni.

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Mt. Athos, December 13, 2024

Photo: voria.gr     

A 40-year-old monk was found dead on a rocky shore in the Monoxylites area of Provata on the southern coast of Mt. Athos.

The disappearance of the monk of Xenophontos Monastery had been reported to the Karyes Police Station on Rescue teams searching for missing Athonite monkAuthorities were alerted about the disappearance of a monk from Xenophontos Monastery on Monday.

“>November 29.

With the assistance of personnel from the Mt. Athos Police Department and the Karyes [the “capital” of Mt. Athos] Fire Service, the body was transported to a point accessible by sea and from there was transferred by private vessel to the mainland, reports voria.gr, which gives the monk’s name as Epiphanios.

The monk’s body, which was in an advanced state of decomposition, will be transferred to the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s Laboratory of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology for autopsy and examination.

A preliminary investigation into the incident is being conducted by the Mt. Athos Port Authority.

“What is concerning is that his traces were lost from Xenophontos Monastery on the western coast of Mount Athos, and he was found quite far away, on the southern rocky shores of the Athonite state,” writes voria.gr.

May Fr. Epiphanios’ memory be eternal!

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Irene “Jurate” Venckus knows the saga and strength of her Lithuanian family.

Her grandfather was shot by invading Russians during World War II. Her uncle joined the resistance fighters.

No one attended church for fear of arrest.

The family eventually had to flee their homeland before finding safety and religious freedom in North America.

Venckus shared this harrowing story at “Su Kristumi,” the West Coast’s first religious congress of Lithuanians held Dec. 6-7 at St. Casimir Catholic Church in Los Feliz. Inside the parish hall that’s covered with flags and folk art, passions ran high on the subject of preserving Lithuanian identity.

“This parish is like my mission,” said Venckus, a catechist at St. Casimir. “If we don’t have the parish anymore we’re going to scatter. Events like this help keep the faith alive and through the faith we keep the Lithuanian community alive.”

Su Kristumi, Lithuanian for “with Christ,” was organized by the parish to celebrate and promote its ethnic and religious heritage. Thanks to donations and a grant from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Called To Renew campaign, the conference offered speakers, music, Mass, confession, and recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. As the West Coast’s only Lithuanian Catholic church, attendees came everywhere from San Bernardino to Seattle. 

Father Tomas Karanauskas, St. Casimir’s pastor and a Lithuania native, insists now is the time to act since first and second-generation Lithuanian Americans are getting older and their legacies face abandonment in a modern metropolis.

“Living in the City of Angels, we can lose our wings,” Karanauskas said. “It’s challenging to keep alive our Catholic faith and Lithuanian culture. How can we honor our ancestor’s sacrifices? How can we carry the light of Christ into a world that desperately needs it? The answers to these questions begin here today.”

Throughout the weekend, attendees were taken on a journey of Lithuanian history from prosecution to liberation to a new chapter of evangelization, with talks from Los Angeles auxiliary bishops Matthew Elshoff, OFM Cap., and Slawomir Szkredka, SSD, as well as Lithuanian guests Father Jokubas Gostautas, OP, and Deacon Benas Ulevicius, Ph.D. 

Ulevicius, a dean and theology professor, recalled his childhood under Soviet occupation when churches were closed and he had to secretly receive catechism lessons at a dental office. He says the faithful outwardly toed the line but privately prepared for better days.

“Wait and grow, wait and grow,” Ulevicius said. “It sounds like the Advent message. [We were] keeping our prayers alive, keeping our relationships alive … we are waiting but not waiting idle … We had an unbreakable spirit.”

Born and raised in Lithuania, Daiva Bartulis remembers those days as well. After moving to America, she committed to giving her daughter a different faith experience.

“It’s amazing. I’m getting right now what I missed in my childhood,” said Bartulis, parish council member of St. Casimir. “Religion wasn’t part of the culture. We couldn’t go to church. That’s why our daughter went to school here.”

St. Casimir Lithuanian Heritage School is held every Saturday so children can receive language, cultural and religious instruction. Students from the school and a confirmation retreat offered strong opinions after attending the congress.

“Without the traditions what are we,” said Jamileh Towli, 16. “we’re barely a culture, barely a country. It’s the traditions, the history, the holidays, the mythology … that make us Lithuania.”

Markus Petrusis proudly wore a baseball cap bearing the Lithuanian coat of arms. The 15-year-old said the lectures were interesting and made him think about his role as a young Lithuanian American.

“It means I try to learn the language, celebrate the culture and eat the great food,” he said.

Bishop Szkredka, a native of Poland, welcomed the students and thanked the Lithuanian community for always welcoming him. Growing up during the waning years of Communist rule, the bishop spoke about the relief that comes from liberation — be it physical or spiritual — and reminded the crowd to move forward with Jesus.

“When he sets us free, this is not the end of the story,” Szkredka said. “We need to invite him to be in our hearts. It’s not enough just to enjoy the healing, the forgiveness, the liberation. We respond to that by holding onto Jesus and telling him, ‘Lord I want to do your will.’ ”

Opening his talk with the classic hymn, “Joy to the World,” Bishop Elshoff spoke to the crowd about becoming “spirit-filled” evangelizers. Using Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), as a guide, the bishop encouraged the crowd to think about how they can evangelize others with their love of Christ and then assigned some “homework” for the holidays.

“We all know about Lenten resolutions,” Elshoff said. “I’d like to encourage you to make an Advent resolution. I would like you to pray and live that resolution to Christmas and bring that intention with you before the Christmas crib as your gift to the baby Jesus.”

In the audience, Laura Kush was taking notes and nodding her head. As a member of the West’s only chapter of the Knights of Lithuania, she knows there’s work to be done if traditional customs are to survive in the U.S. However, she also worries about what’s happening abroad.

“With Russian aggression against Ukraine, which is very close to Lithuania, we need to keep what our ancestors worked toward,” said Kush, public relations chair for the Knights of Lithuania. “We need to keep NATO strong and our homeland free.”

In addition to speaking, Father Gostautas gave the homily at Mass. The monastery prior made a point of greeting parishioners and learning a little about their lives.

“This is my first visit to the United States,” Gostautas said. “I was very happy to see that the Lithuanian community is still vibrant and active and remembers its Lithuanian roots.”

Vidal Aguas, who heads religious and administrative affairs at the parish, was the one who first suggested a congress. 

“We thank the almighty that with this conference we were able to bring Christ and reawaken generations of Lithuanian expats to their Catholic faith,” Aguas said. “We hope [they] come to Sunday Mass, receive the sacraments and teach their children.”

Damascus, December 13, 2024

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

For the time being, the people of the Antiochian Patriarchate are safe, say Church hierarchs.

In a phone conversation yesterday, His Beatitude Patriarch John of Antioch informed Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens about the current situation in Syria, reporting that at present the clergy and people of the ancient Patriarchate are safe, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

Pat. John requested prayers from the sister Church of Greece, and Abp. Ieronymos assured that the Church of Greece will, as always, stand by the Church of Antioch.

Many Orthodox primates and hierarchs have expressed their support, via letter or phone call, for the Patriarchate of Antioch and its people during this time of upheaval, as Islamist rebels have taken over the country.

His Eminence Metropolitan Ephraim, hierarch over the historically Christian city of Aleppo, has also reported that calm prevails there, with people moving about normally.

As he reports, the previous days were very difficult, as the residents of Aleppo, fearing what would happen when the rebels entered the city, left hurriedly, though now residents have begun to return”

We’re well and the flock is well. People started returning to Aleppo because they had left in the first days, in the first moments they were afraid of the situation. We too were worried and didn’t know what would happen when the rebels came in and took control of the city, what would become of us Christians. Now all these things have been clarified and we are no longer worried. Of course we’re waiting to see what will happen but we’re not worried at all because they reassured us and told us that they won’t harm us and won’t harm anyone.

However, though Aleppo is peaceful for the time being, “in other cities there is great unrest,” the hierarch added.

“We don’t know what will happen, they are stealing, killing, many things are happening especially in Damascus,” Met. Ephraim said earlier this week.

The biggest problem today in Aleppo, as His Eminence Metropolitan Ephraim says, is the lack of cash due to banks not operating and the increase in prices.

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Zeph. 3:14-18 / Is. 12:2-6 / Phil. 4:4-7 / Lk. 3:10-18

The people in today’s Gospel are “filled with expectation.” They believe John the Baptist might be the Messiah they’ve been waiting for. Three times we hear their question: “What then should we do?”

The Messiah’s coming requires every man and woman to choose — to “repent” or not. That’s John’s message and it will be Jesus’ too (see Luke 3:3; 5:32; 24:47).

“Repentance” translates a Greek word, “metanoia” (literally, “change of mind”). In the Scriptures, repentance is presented as a twofold “turning” away from sin (see Ezekiel 3:19; 18:30) and toward God (see Sirach 17:20-21; Hosea 6:1).

This “turning” is more than attitude adjustment. It means a radical life-change. It requires “good fruits as evidence of your repentance” (see Luke 3:8). That’s why John tells the crowds, soldiers, and tax collectors they must prove their faith through works of charity, honesty, and social justice.

In today’s liturgy, each of us is being called to stand in that crowd and hear the “good news” of John’s call to repentance. We should examine our lives, ask from our hearts as they did: “What should we do?” Our repentance should spring, not from our fear of coming wrath (see Luke 3:7-9), but from a joyful sense of the nearness of our saving God.

This theme resounds through today’s readings: “Rejoice! … The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all,” we hear in today’s Epistle. In today’s Responsorial, we hear again the call to be joyful, unafraid at the Lord’s coming among us.

In today’s First Reading, we hear echoes of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary. The prophet’s words are very close to the angel’s greeting (compare Luke 1:28-31). Mary is the Daughter Zion — the favored one of God, told not to fear but to rejoice that the Lord is with her, “a mighty Savior.”

She is the cause of our joy. For in her draws near the Messiah, as John had promised: “One mightier than I is coming.”