Tag: Christianity

Is. 50:4–7 / Ps. 22:8–9, 17–20, 23–24 / Phil. 2:6–11 / Lk. 22:14–23:56 

“What is written about Me is coming to fulfillment,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel (see Luke 22:37). Indeed, we have reached the climax of the liturgical year, the highest peak of salvation history, when all that has been anticipated and promised is to be fulfilled.

By the close of today’s long Gospel, the work of our redemption will have been accomplished, the new covenant will be written in the blood of his broken body hanging on the cross at the place called the Skull.

In his Passion, Jesus is “counted among the wicked,” as Isaiah had foretold (see Isaiah 53:12). He is revealed definitively as the Suffering Servant the prophet announced, the long-awaited Messiah whose words of obedience and faith ring out in today’s First Reading and Psalm.

The taunts and torments we hear in these two readings punctuate the Gospel as Jesus is beaten and mocked (see Luke 22:63–65; 23:10–11, 16), as his hands and feet are pierced (see Luke 23:33), as enemies gamble for his clothes ( see Luke 23:34), and as three times they dare him to prove his divinity by saving himself from suffering (see Luke 23:35, 37, 39)

He remains faithful to God’s will to the end, does not turn back in his trial. He gives himself freely to his torturers, confident that, as he speaks in today’s First Reading: “The Lord God is My help … I shall not be put to shame.”

Destined to sin and death as children of Adam’s disobedience, we have been set free for holiness and life by Christ’s perfect obedience to the Father’s will (see Romans 5:12–14, 17–19; Ephesians 2:2; 5:6).

This is why God greatly exalted him. This is why we have salvation in his Name. Following his example of humble obedience in the trials and crosses of our lives, we know we will never be forsaken, that one day we, too, will be with him in paradise (see Luke 23:42).

Madeleine Delbrêl (1904-1964) was a French convert and mystic who founded an experimental lay community dedicated to social justice and the works of mercy.

An eccentric who started where she was and worked with what was at hand, she could be an exemplar for the kind of person Pope Francis meant when he called the laity to “the outskirts of existence.” At the same time, he added, “[The layperson] is to create and sow hope, to proclaim the faith, not from a pulpit but from his everyday life.”

An only child, in her youth Delbrêl was resolutely atheistic. After converting in 1924, she became engaged to a man who broke off their relationship to join the Dominicans. Then her father went blind. The experiences devastated her.

In 1933, she accepted the offer from a priest of a two-bedroom house in the largely communist Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine. Along with two other women, she moved in shortly thereafter.

Raspail, as their house was known, became a hub of social and political activism with an emphasis on treating Christ in “the least of these” with humility, verve, and humor.

Delbrêl didn’t attempt to “influence,” in the way of today’s social media stars; rather, she served — with no thought of whom or even why, beyond the fact that every human being is a child of God.

“When you finally discover that you are just one of the little people,” she once quipped, “don’t conclude that this makes you special.”

Over the years, Raspail sheltered incorrigible drunks, borderline personalities, and families spilling over with children. As well, the community befriended the communists among whom they lived.

Delbrêl, who was declared “Venerable” by Francis in 2018, was dazzled by the notion that authentic freedom is grounded in Christ. She also wrote of the Church’s failure adequately to love the outcast and the prisoner.

In keeping with her below-the-radar ethos, she resisted what she called “literature.” Nonetheless, she constantly scribbled pamphlets, letters-to-the-editor, and tracts.

Her books include “We, the Ordinary People of the Streets” (Eerdmans, $31.99),  “The Little Monk” (Crossroad, $10.58), and, probably her most well-known, “The Joy of Believing” (Sophia Institute Press, $19.95).

She worked indefatigably during World War II to welcome refugees, arrange housing, and console the traumatized. All the while she smoked like a fiend, wore salvaged pillbox hats decorated with fake flowers, and took abysmal care of her health.

In time, she traveled to Switzerland, Scotland, Africa, Poland, and Rome, but France remained forever her home base. She resisted organizing Raspail as a “Pious Institute” with fixed rules and regulations, as was decreed by the Vatican for lay organizations in 1947. She believed in “people without categories” and in a life without boundaries.

For those of us without special attributes or charismatic personalities, Delbrêl’s message is welcome indeed.

“Clearly we have to make our presence in the world a casual, fragile presence, a presence that is constantly ready for new departures, or which plunges down roots without knowing from day to day how long they will remain there,” she wrote. “This happens because we know that God alone calls, gives faith, and saves, that none of us have any real authority. … It is possible that no one will respond to this call … ever. We could get a mouthful of failure.”

In practice, a mouthful of failure can be hard to swallow.

I keep thinking of a period during which I frequently attended noon Mass at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Pasadena. After several months I came to recognize the other regulars. One woman with a kind, worn face often stayed afterward as I did for a time of silent prayer. We fell to chatting one afternoon: “It’s nice to be here together,” I told her. “Even though we parishioners mostly don’t know each other — at least I don’t — knowing we are all part of the Mystical Body is a kind of comfort.”

“I come every day,” she agreed. “My children, my grown children … they’ve all fallen away from the faith. I’ve come every day for years and pray with all my heart for them to return.”

“Each time that we are torn apart because we choose to be faithful to God’s faithfulness to us,” Delbrêl wrote, “we become as it were breaches in the world’s resistance.”

We become breaches in the world’s resistance whether we’re sheltering the immigrant, or praying for our — and by extension the world’s — lapsed children.

That faithful parishioner may not have converted her children, but she converted — and continues to convert — me.

On Oct. 13, 1964, Delbrêl worked, as usual, at the battered desk from which she ministered to her “tiny multitude.” A community member found her lifeless body late that afternoon.

She would have concurred absolutely with the challenge recently issued by my parish priest. “So you call yourself Catholic — wonderful! Now show me! Show me in the way you love me.”

On RepentanceFather Kyrik was an experienced practitioner of the prayer of the heart and edified his spiritual children primarily through his own example.

“>Part 1
On ConfessionWe must firmly believe in our Lord Jesus Christ’s labor on the Cross before His Heavenly Father, and that He tore up our sins on the Cross and gave us great mercy—which we don’t deserve.”>Part 2
On the Proper Approach to PrayerBefore prayer, we have to attune ourselves for piety, that is, to think about who we are and Who is He with Whom we want to talk?”>Part 3

Photo: tolga-m.ru     

Thus, before prayer, we must lament our insignificance and sins. This is useful and salvific for the soul, which is an immortal thing. However, those who overly lament their wretchedness and therefore don’t hope in the mercy of God may be thrown by demons, under the guise of something good for him, into extreme sorrow and lack of faith in God, even to the point of suicide! Then, in order to drive away such demonic delusion, say to yourself: “For sinners like me, the Lord God came from Heaven to earth and died on the Cross for all, and in particular for me…” Then all thoughts and machinations of the enemy will disappear at that very moment, driven out by the power of the Cross and the riches of the grace of God given us in the Holy Sacraments of the Church. Thus, bitter consequences come from improper prayer and not keeping the mind in prayer, when a man uses the imagination of his mind during prayer to the point of arousing the blood, or indulges in feelings of self-satisfaction, self-valuation, and self-conceit, or enjoys tears, thinking that they are from the grace of God, which has actually withdrawn from him. Then the demons freely approach our soul and play with it, like children with a ball, because of the retreat of God’s grace.

We must pray with a contrite spirit and humble heart, conscious of our own weakness and powerlessness. The words of prayer should be pronounced in a plaintive tone, as beggars ask for alms. And do not seek the gift of prayer or spiritual sweetness with the words of prayer, but pronounce them that the Lord God Himself might drive away from you that passion or sinful habit with which you often struggle—be it anger, vindictiveness, vain thoughts, blasphemous thoughts, carnal desires, a scattered mind, hardness of heart, laziness, drowsiness, ignorance, forgetfulness, or some other sinful passion. You should also say the words of prayer that the Lord God might forgive your sins and save your soul, by whatever means He knows best. The end of everything in prayer is to surrender yourself to the “Just Stay, and Rely On the Will of God”And there I stood in the middle of the field, with an enraged bull rushing at me. And I had the thought: “How good it is that I managed to become a novice! That means I’ll die in obedience.”

“>will of God. God carries in His arms those who surrender to His will, and to those who ask God in prayer only for what is useful and salvific, God gives what he asks, but does not carry him in His arms.

It also happens that fervent men of prayer at the beginning of their spiritual life, and others even to the end of their lives, experience blasphemous thoughts that don’t allow them to pray, so they completely abandon prayer and the demons drive them to despair. But we need to know why God allows us to have such a difficult state of soul. It’s because without God’s allowance, the demons can’t touch us—therefore the reason is from our side. This happens because of a lack of fear of God. Then the grace of the Holy Spirit leaves us, and since it departs because of our spiritual pride, demons draw near to us, rejoicing in our destruction, and bring their thoughts into our mind so we might think that these evil thoughts are our own. With themwe blaspheme God of our own will.

And how can we fight against these “Evil Thoughts Are Like Airplanes Looking for Airports”We should be very attentive, because the devil attacks ascetics primarily via their thoughts. First, you have no idea in what direction one or another thought may lead you, and what temptation may be hidden within it.

“>evil thoughts? The main thing is not to think that these are our own thoughts, but understand that they’re from the demons and look at them as dogs barking, and say to ourselves: “These thoughts are from the demons and therefore I don’t want or desire them.” And then call out to the Lord: “Lord, forgive me and help me!” And that minute they will disappear, like smoke, driven out by God—not by our prayer, but rather for our humility.

We must pray with a definite purpose, and we must expect from God not what we desire, but what God will give; for He said with His most pure lips: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Matt. 7:7); and He assures us that He will give us something better than what we ask of Him, confirming this with an example: Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? (Matt. 7:9–10)? That is, you ask for what seems like bread (in your view), but it’s a stone, or a fish, it’s a serpent—which you don’t even suspect, not knowing the future because you’re deceitful—that is, changeable and short-lived and not far-sighted. While I, says the Lord, know everything—both the present and the future. Pray then and don’t despair, that is, don’t torment yourselves with your own thoughts and the expectations of what you ask for; I know better than you and love you more than you love your children, so trust in Me, as children do their Father and Creator. The holy Apostle Paul said: Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks (1 Thess. 5:17–18), and do everything to the glory of God, for this is pleasing to God.

Thus, praying incessantly doesn’t mean standing before the holy icons and praying all day. It’s necessary to pray at certain times, but this doesn’t constitute the incessant prayer that is characteristic of those who have devoted themselves to God and especially to the monastic order. For all other people of God, as St. John Chrysostom says, can and should pray during any activity—even sitting at a spinning wheel, raising their minds to God during any task. Thus, while engaged in the everyday handiwork that no man can avoid, we can and should pray: that is, move from the visible object (that we’re currently holding) to the invisible Divine name. For example, if you look at fire—whether in a stove, lampada, or anywhere else—say to yourself mentally: “Lord, deliver me from the eternal fire!” And by doing so, you humble your thoughts and unconsciously sigh, drawing to yourself the grace of the Holy Spirit, Who at that moment is imperceptibly working our salvation within our soul. “Every soul is enlivened by the Holy Spirit and is exalted in purity,” the holy Church sings.

Then, in a similar way move from visible objects to invisible ones. In all situations and activities, such as washing or cleaning any object, say to yourself: “Lord, cleanse the filth of my soul!” Also, when you begin eating or drinking water, or tea, or whatever else is necessary, think about how the Lord God tasted gall and vinegar for the sake of our salvation, yet offers us all good things. When lying down on your bed or cot, say to yourself: “Our Lord God had nowhere to lay His head, yet He has given me every comfort.” When awakening from sleep, cross yourself, and when you arise from your bed, say mentally: “Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!” When you go to put your shoes on, say: “Lord, bless!” When putting on clothes that are appropriate and proper for you, say with your mind to God: “Lord, enlighten the garment of my soul!” And when you begin to tidy the hair on your head, remember how the Roman soldiers tore at our God and Savior’s most pure hair when they dragged Him to crucifixion—and then say: “Glory to Thy Passion, O Lord!” When you begin to wash yourself, be sure to cross yourself to drive away the enemy’s temptations through the nature of the water. When leaving a room and when returning to it, mentally recite “It is truly meet.” When grasping a door handle, say to yourself mentally: “Open unto us the doors of mercy, O Blessed Theotokos…” When going to sleep, remember eternity and say to yourself mentally: “What if this night proves to be my last?” And then comes eternity, which, according to St. John Chrysostom, is more terrible than hell itself! St. Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov says: “Whoever does not remember torment will not avoid torment.”

The holy monastic fathers teach that the memory of death is equivalent to prayer itself, or that it gives birth to prayer. Thus, when Venerable and God-bearing Father Anthony the GreatSaint Anthony the Great is known as the Father of monasticism.

“>St. Anthony the Great, the first of the monastic fathers, was dying, he called all his disciples to himself and gave them his final word, as a testament: “My children, don’t forget about your departure from this temporal life to eternal life.” Saying this, he found that there was no virtue more powerful than this for saving the soul and pleasing God. It is not without reason that the Holy Scripture says, Remember thy end and thou shalt never sin (Sir. 7:36)!

Thus, always and in all your deeds and undertakings, train yourself, with the help of God, to move from visible objects to the invisible—the Divine, which unites us with the Divine and saving name of Christ, Who bestows grace-filled help upon us for the work of saving our souls in all our deeds and undertakings! In doing so, you will do everything to the glory of God, according to the holy Apostle Paul. And St. Basil the Great says that precisely this movement of the soul to God—whether in gratitude or glorifying His majesty, or self-abasement and contrition of heart, and so on—is already prayer, towards which every object we see pushes us, so to speak, and constitutes a cause as it were for the arousal of such prayer. But when despondency and hardness of heart attack us and prevent prayer, we must say inwardly: “Lord, I have neither the compunction, the zeal, nor the contrition to pray to You worthily!” With such contrition of heart, by God’s mercy, a God-pleasing prayer will appear; for God does not despise a contrite and humble heart—He won’t leave it helpless.

With such concern for God’s glory and with a feeling or heartfelt awareness of the weakness of our nature, the grace of the Holy Spirit or God’s saving power will dwell in you, and you will be numbered among those of whom the Holy Apostle said: My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you… (Gal. 4:19). The Kingdom of God doesn’t open for those in whom Christ has not come to dwell here on this earth. And wherever there is Christ, the never-setting Light, there is no satanic darkness, and therefore you will have neither tedium, nor despondency, nor hardness of heart, but quiet joy in the Holy Spirit and divine reverence and humility of heart in your soul. And where there is humility, there is salvation. May our Lord God Jesus Christ grant all of us this through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and all the saints.

Amen.

Read and approved by Metropolitan ANTHONY, November 1, 1932

Photo: ru.dalailama.com   

During Great Lent of 2017, I happened to come to the Cathedral of the Protection of the Mother of God in Sevastopol for the Holy Wednesday. The service of Holy UnctionIt is a tradition in the Orthodox Church for all the faithful to receive Holy Unction during Great Lent. In many churches, this service is celebrated specifically on Holy and Great Wednesday, after the Matins served that evening.

“>Holy Unction service. The people stood in a semicircle around the priests who were reciting the necessary prayers. At the right moment, the priests began to walk around the believers anointing each one with consecrated oil-unction, touching our forehead, nostrils, cheeks, chest, and palms on both sides.

I had a woman aged fifty or so standing next to me. When she lifted her hands for the priest to anoint her palms, I noticed a red thread on her left wrist. Father Paul also noticed it.

“What do you need this thread for?” he asked sternly. “You are in a church!”

The woman mumbled something unintelligible. Batiushka chose not to say anything else to her, and having anointed her with oil, went on his way. But I couldn’t keep it to myself:

“Excuse me, but do you know that this red thread around your wrist is from the occultists, the cabbalists?”

Not at all abashed at this, the lady replied:

“It’s against the evil eye. Should have it, just in case.”

I couldn’t keep quiet:

“But you came to participate in the sacrament, you came to God! And this thread of yours is the invention of sorcerers.”

She chuckled in response:

“How can it hurt? One won’t hinder the other.”

Trust but verify

“One won’t hinder the other!” We can only wonder at times at the spiritual illiteracy or even complete ignorance of people who get interested in mystical spiritual practices, psychic practices, “parallel worlds”, “alien intelligence” and the like. Today this subject is widely promoted like never before and the demand for it is huge. Why? Many people are bored with “easily understandable” earthly pleasures; they are tired of the natural course of things, and want something “more juicy”, more SUPERnatural than before. The other world, auras, chakras, clairvoyance, “Those who worshipped the stars”What matters most is that they traveled on behalf of those “who worshipped the stars” to adore Him, “the Sun of Righteousness” Who shone to the history of humanity “the Orient from on High.”

“>astrology—that’s what they need!

Throwing common sense and caution to the wind, people believe fortune-tellers and diviners, magicians and paranormalists

Without a shadow of a doubt, forgetting basic cautiousness and the rule “trust but verify,” people believe fortune-tellers and diviners, magicians and paranormalists. As they say, they blindly believe them, that is, without thought or testing, without asking any questions. We watch these things on television—the carefully choreographed grandstanding of fake magicians and shamans—and so, it as if means that it’s all okay, and there’s no harm in it whatsoever. And so, they place themselves in the hands of these shady people without considering the consequences.

So, can you actually have it both ways?

This problem, as they say, is actually a “tired idea.” But I am personally scared of something else: the spiritual unscrupulousness of people. In the pursuit of results, especially in a desperate situation, when all worldly means have been exhausted, people are willing to do anything and everything: to receive “treatment” from a psychic, engage in yoga practices—and go to an Orthodox church at the same time, confessing and receiving Holy Communion there. People even trust these charlatans and take their remedies.

It would seem, what could be wrong with it? Because receiving Communion is good, right? As for the red thread around your wrist—it doesn’t hurt anyone, right? Could God hurt? But He doesn’t care, for the most part! And also, I do believe in Him! As for the red thread—this is what everyone’s wearing these days; and they say that it helps a lot—it drives away dark forces, preventing them from casting a bad spell on you! But I want to ask: Why do you need God, after all? You have this thread protecting you! And the answer I get is simply amazing: One doesn’t hinder the other.

The red thread is far from being harmless. It is an “invention” of the followers of Kabbalah

How terrible! The horror! Help! Asking God for help—and then, as a backup (what if God doesn’t help!)—asking the same of the devil. That red thread of yours isn’t as harmless as you may think. It is an “invention” of the followers of Kabbalah—a mystical occult movement in Judaism, or, in simple language, it is an invention of Satan to deceive the souls of men.

Deception of the red thread

What is this deception about? It is quite simple: whoever wears the red thread has the idea that this thread has the power to block the “evil eye” and protect against “spells” (negative action of evil spirits inflicted by ill-wishers). This power is the result of a certain magic spell, a set of “magical” words spoken over the threads by the keeper of “secret knowledge”—in other words, a sorcerer who is, of course, “highly qualified.” Through this magic spell, the sorcerer transmits to threads not his own “energy,” since as a biological creature, he can’t possess them, but the “energy” of evil forces he is serving after making deal with the devil. This servant of darkness is nothing but a pawn in the clutches of demons, a conduit between the world of men and the world of dark spirits hostile to man. Thus, the red thread is “dipped” in black, satanic “energies.”

And, so? What is the catch? The catch is that the red thread, “charged” with demonic energy, is supposed to resist that same demonic energy, in popular parlance, the “evil eye” and “spells.” To put it briefly, one demon is called to fight another demon, Satan is called to fight against himself. In the Gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ says this:

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? (Matt. 12, 25–26).

It’s as simple as that: the denunciation, so to speak, of a clever trick the people are fooled into when they naively seek help from the devil—the devil himself! Of course you can buy ordinary red woolen thread the local store and wear like jewelry. You never know what our women might put around their wrists… However, the craftiness of the “enchanted” red thread is that it is worn as an amulet on which its owner places certain hopes.

The magic spell “contained” in the thread can’t function on its own, and you get nothing out of it—not until the demonic power, hidden in it, is ignited by you belief in it. “I believe the red thread protects me. I believe in its power!” That’s when the direct action of evil forces commences upon the owner of the red thread, who has opened his soul to these forces by consenting. He as if says, “I want you, mighty forces, to protect me.” That’s when the person is taken captive by demons. But this does not seem to be enough for him! He comes to the church and to God wearing this thread, to acquire “additional energy!”

But it is not possible to be with both God and the devil, hoping to receive equal help “from above” and “from below.” The Scriptures say:

For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? (2 Cor. 6:14–15).

Therefore, we need to make up our minds—who are we with? Who are we for? Under whose banners are we struggling for salvation from the power of the devil and death?

The answer is obvious: Salvation is only possible in God, only in agreement with God’s commandments. Allegiance to Belial, i.e. the devil, even if not openly but through sorcerers and psychics, by wearing “enchanted” amulets, or that very red thread, is the path to eternal perdition, to eternal separation from God. Let us think about this when we decide to attend church services. Let us be faithful to God alone, and God will always be with us!

On weekends in April, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Barbara has been going blue.

To mark Child Abuse Prevention Month, blue lights illuminate the church’s exterior and blue ribbons decorate trees and doors of the parish, which is located on the east side of the city and has a predominantly Spanish-speaking congregation of some 3,000 families. Confirmation students also celebrate a “Wear Blue Day.”

The couple behind the commemorative decorations and events is Anthony Rodriguez and his wife, Bianca, Our Lady of Guadalupe parishioners since 2000 when they wed.

Both are victims of child sexual abuse.

Rodriguez has made it his mission to encourage children to speak up by visiting churches throughout the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to share his story and show a video about his journey from victim to survivor, produced by an independent documentary filmmaker.

“I need to make sure these kids know they can come forward and say something,” he said.

On April 1, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors issued a proclamation honoring Rodriguez and Our Lady of Guadalupe for their efforts in shining a light on child sexual abuse and the need to do everything possible to prevent it and encourage victims to come forward.

“Child abuse prevention is not just a cause I advocate for — it’s my story,” Rodriguez said in accepting the proclamation, sponsored by Supervisor Roy Lee.

“I was once a victim, carrying the scars of my experiences in silence,” Rodriguez said. “Today, I’m a survivor. And from that survival came a promise — a promise that I would never again be silent, a promise to be the voice for those who feel that they don’t have one, and to fight for every child who deserves to feel safe, loved, and valued.”

He added: “To everyone here today, this work doesn’t end with one person or one moment. It takes all of us — our compassion, our commitment, and our voices — to create lasting change. And I believe that together, we can.”

Rodriguez then handed out pins for the supervisors to wear.

Rodriguez was 5 when his uncle started sexually abusing him after his father, a drug user and alcoholic, died of a heart attack at age 35.

The abuse continued for a decade.

For years, Rodriguez, an only child, kept quiet. He joined a gang when he was 12 and spent time in a psychiatric ward three times. He was 15 when the abuse stopped after he told his mother about his offender, an uncle who fled to Mexico when she confronted him.

“My mom believed me,” Rodriguez said. “A lot of these kids don’t have people who believe them. She took it hard. I didn’t say anything for so long because I was scared.”

The aftershocks of being sexually abused continued.

When he was 16, he attempted suicide by overdosing on cocaine and methamphetamine. He wanted his heart to stop.

It wasn’t until he was 24, after he had met Bianca, that he began his journey to becoming a survivor.

Now, Rodriguez is eager to discuss his experience so other victims will have the courage to come forward.

He recalled a young lady who heard his testimony at an archdiocese parish. Two years later, she invited him over to her house with her parents present because she wanted to tell him about being sexually abused.

A police report was filed.

Soon after, the girl’s mother and grandmother confided to Rodriguez that they, too, had been sexually abused by the same man.

“The grandmother’s sister’s husband abused all three generations of women,” Rodriguez said.

All churches in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are required to have Safeguard the Children Committees in the wake of the clerical sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church more than two decades ago.

Rodriguez and Bianca are longtime co-chairs of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Safeguard the Children Committee, whose campaign theme this year throughout the archdiocese is “Keeping Kids Safe Today, Tomorrow, and Forever.”

Rodriguez, an operations and disaster services specialist for the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, also teamed up with the Glendon Association, a Santa Barbara nonprofit whose mission is to save lives and enhance mental health by addressing suicide, child abuse, violence, and troubled relationships.

He is also active in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

In 2013, the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper recognized Rodriguez as a local hero, and in 2015, the Santa Barbara City Council honored him and Our Lady of Guadalupe for their efforts in combating child sexual abuse.

“Anthony has been good about going around and talking about his experience not only here but at other parishes in the archdiocese as well as organizations in the community at large to heighten awareness,” said Father Pedro J. Lopez, who’s been pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe for 10 years.

In his comments after accepting the Board of Supervisors’ proclamation, Rodriguez said of Our Lady of Guadalupe: “We strive to protect [children], to educate others, and to stand boldly and unrelentingly for their rights. As a community, it’s our shared responsibility to ensure that every child has the freedom to dream without fear, to grow without harm, and to thrive without barriers.”

In an interview, he added: “I know for a fact if we would have had this program [Safeguard the Children] for my mom when I was young, things would have been different.

“Nobody talked about it back then. These kids depend on adults, and we have to be the ones who are their eyes, ears, and voice.”

The heart is where a person can integrate his or her life amid a fragmented world, and the source of a heart’s mending and life is “the mystery of the heart of Christ,” said Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, while speaking April 9 about Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical, “Dilexit Nos,” or “He loved us.”

Subtitled “On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” the encyclical was released in October 2024 in the final days of the second general assembly of the Synod on Synodality.

The topic may have surprised some, but it should not have, Bishop Flores said during a webinar organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops titled “Pope Francis on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Synodality and the Dignity of Being Human.”

The 120-page document “shows … us a lot of the Holy Father’s heart with regard to what he has most, since the beginning of his pontificate, desired for the church,” said Bishop Flores, a member of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod at the Vatican and a participant in the Synod on Synodality — formally known as the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. He also led the synodal process in the U.S. and is helping implement the synod’s directives.

Bishop Flores described “Dilexit Nos” as “a document to be meditated and to be prayed upon, prayed about, and lingered over, even in the footnotes.”

The opening line, that Jesus “loved us,” is drawn from Romans 8:37, where St. Paul explains that Christians can never be separated from the love of Christ.

“It’s a theme that is very much about the love of Christ shown to us as the first most important thing that we could sort of appreciate about the mystery of salvation — that it’s always God’s initiative, and the initiative has to come from God the Father, through the sending of his son,” Bishop Flores said.

“Separation” is a key word for the document, he continued, because “the heart is the place where everything in the human person sort of comes together — intellect and will and emotions and senses and the body. All of our human relations with others sort of meet in what we call the heart. The heart is sort of the center where things are pulled together.”

Many people “experience life as a scattering,” Bishop Flores said, even when it comes to one’s experience of God. “We have lots of things coming at us, and we don’t know how they fit together,” which can lead to hopelessness.

“I think part of the aim and burden of this document is to give us hope that we can rebuild a sense of integrity,” he said. “But it has to start with the integrity of our own human heart, because it’s not possible to appreciate the gift of the heart of Jesus if we don’t appreciate what the heart even means for us, and we run a risk in our current culture of losing our sense of the importance of the human heart.”

“Dilexit Nos” draws on writings from across the history of the church on Jesus’ heart, even before the devotion to his Sacred Heart was formalized.

In the 1670s, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque experienced visions of Christ asking her to work to establish a devotion to his Sacred Heart. After her death in 1690, the Jesuits, the religious order of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s confessor St. Claude La Colombière (as well as Pope Francis), continued to advance the devotion for the whole church. In 1856, Pope Pius IX added the feast of the Sacred Heart to the universal church calendar.

The encyclical explores the role of the heart — the human heart, Jesus’ heart and the heart of the church, Bishop Flores said. “So many times the Holy Father talks about tenderness and about how we’re in danger of losing it, and talks about a modern experience of what it means to have a stoney heart that needs to be made into a heart of flesh,” referring to a biblical metaphor from Ezekiel 36:26. “That is what he is saying our evangelization is aiming towards.”

Ultimately, the document leads to “an implicit theology of the Holy Spirit as the agent of God’s heart beginning to beat in ours,” Bishop Flores said. “This is the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Private devotion to the Sacred Heart should not be severed from “seeing that the heart of Jesus moves us out to touch the wounded in the world, because that’s where Jesus calls us to be,” he said. Nor should people fall to temptation of doing the work Christ commanded in the world but making Jesus “just like a footnote to the whole effort.”

“It’s two dangers, and it’s actually a danger in the pastoral life of the church, that we separate devotion from the love of Christ, which is given to Christ in the world when he suffers,” Bishop Flores said. “The whole burden of social justice, therefore, is the fruit of a healthy, vibrant relationship to the heart of Jesus. Because if you know the heart of Jesus, you will know his look, where his love is directed, and your impulse will be to go where his love is directed.”

Given the timing of the document’s release, Bishop Flores said, “I think the Holy Father desperately does not want us to forget what the source of synodality is, because you’re really talking about the source of the life of the church in grace, and the source is the gift given in Christ, to which we must respond.”

“If we lose sight of that, then it simply does devolve into a programmatic sort of thing,” he said. “We can have all the listening sessions we want, but if we kind of see them as a sociological improvement for communication, then we’re missing the point. The point is personal encounter.”

In a split ruling, a federal judge in Illinois permanently blocked a provision of the state’s 2016 Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which attorneys representing pro-life doctors and the state’s 100 pregnancy resource centers said would compel their clients “to promote pro-abortion talking points with women in need.”

A preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the act, known as HCRCA, has been in place since 2017.

U.S District Judge Iain D. Johnston wrote in an April 4 decision that the evidence presented to the Illinois General Assembly in support of the act “was underwhelming.”

He said, “Nevertheless, in its wisdom, the State of Illinois sought to address a perceived problem, which it has every right to do in support of the public’s health, safety, and welfare.”

Judge Johnston added that no evidence had been presented to him showing that without the act, “the health of women was in grave peril.”

He pointed out that “the lack of evidence of women’s health being imperiled … is unsurprising because the HCRCA provides no protections for health care professionals who fail to treat emergencies.”

The case, Schroeder, et al. v. (Mario) Treto Jr., who heads the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, was brought by lawyers for the Thomas More Society. The Chicago-based public interest law firm represented Illinois physician Dr. Ronald Schroeder, 1st Way Pregnancy Support Services, and Pregnancy Aid South Suburbs.

Johnston struck down the part of the HCRCA that required pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers to share the “benefits of abortion” after an ultrasound; but he upheld a separate amendment to the act which, Thomas More lawyers had argued, also “gutted conscience protections for pro-life physicians and pregnancy centers and required them to refer for abortion.”

“Constitutionally, to obtain the liability shield, the state can’t require medical professionals to discuss with patients what the state believes are the benefits of abortions; however, if patients request abortions, at a minimum, the State can require medical professionals to provide information of other medical professionals whom they reasonably believe might perform abortions,” he said.

Johnston said he “understands the plaintiffs’ position that … they are required to effectively endorse a course of conduct they find morally abhorrent.” He called that more of an issue of free exercise of speech.

He concluded that his decision should not “be interpreted as minimizing the constitutional issues at stake in this litigation, the role of the State to address perceived concerns about public health, safety, and welfare, or a woman’s access to medical care.”

In 2016, Illinois amended the HCRCA to require health care providers to discuss abortion’s “benefits” and refer women to abortion providers if they asked. Judge Johnston’s decision was consolidated with a parallel lawsuit, National Institute for Family and Life Advocates v. Treto, Jr., argued before him in 2023.

Thomas Olp, executive vice president of the Thomas More Society, said the firm would appeal the part of the decision referring to free speech, and that he expected the state of Illinois would appeal the other half.

“We’re going to continue to fight for the right of pro-life free speech,” he told OSV News. But Olp emphasized that requiring pregnancy resource centers to do as little as offer a written list of abortion providers against their pro-life beliefs “is compelled speech.”

When U.S. immigration agents unchained Franklin Funez and he stepped off a U.S. military airplane into the heat of his native Honduras on March 20, he was still dressed in the paint-splattered clothes he had worn two days earlier on his way to drop his children at school in Texas and then drive on to the painting company he owns.

That’s when local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials pulled him over and put him in handcuffs.

Funez said he hadn’t been allowed to call his wife and three children, who remain in the United States.

“I’m going to call them as soon as I can. But I know it’s going to break my heart. I’m a father, and I have to tell my children I can’t be there with them,” he said.

Funez said he emigrated to the U.S. 13 years ago, and since then had done everything right, despite lacking legal status.

“I worked hard, paid all my taxes, formed a very profitable company, and last year we bought a home. It was the American dream,” he said.

“We knew there was going to be a drastic change with (President Donald) Trump, and I don’t have a problem with deporting delinquents. But most of us migrants are honest, hard workers, who make the American dream possible for others. If they deport us all, I don’t know who’s going to do the hard work,” he told OSV News.

Funez said his group of deportees was “treated poorly, like dogs,” by U.S. immigration officials and soldiers.

Yet his reception at the airport in San Pedro Sula was a pleasant surprise.

“We welcome you with open arms, like Jesus with his arms stretched wide to embrace you,” said Scalabrinian Sister Idalina Bordignon as she addressed Funez and some 80 other migrants who were deported with him.

Sister Idalina, a native of Brazil, is director of the Center for Attention to Returned Migrants, a joint effort of the Catholic Church and several government and nongovernmental agencies.

As deported migrants disembark from flights, which arrive every day from the U.S. and once or twice a week from Mexico, they receive food, a quick medical check and the equivalent of $100. They also have an opportunity to speak to a mental health worker and pray in a small chapel. Immigration officials issue them identification documents. Any with pending criminal charges are taken into custody by Honduran police.

Several members of Sister Idalina’s team, including a group that works with victims of human trafficking, have been forced to withdraw from the center after suffering funding cuts caused by the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“The migrants say they are treated like garbage while they’re detained, so we try to welcome them as warmly as possible. As they walk in the door they receive a cup of coffee or a soft drink and some food. We give them a small hygiene kit and explain all the resources we make available to them here, as well as a small government grant that helps them buy food and supplies for their families here,” Sister Idalina said.

While many simply want to be on their way, Sister Idalina said some arrive in bad shape.

“Today a man couldn’t stop crying, worried about his four children left behind. He’s with a psychologist now. Another woman was emotionally devastated because she was taken from her children. These are people who are grabbed suddenly at work, and they are often indignant. But it’s just the latest violence they’ve been forced to experience. They’ve long lived with insecurity and hunger. They’ve been assaulted and abused all along the migrant trail,” Sister Idalina said.

“When I was in the airplane, all I could think about was where I was going to sleep that night,” said Jose Arnaldo Martinez, 73, a Honduran who lived in the U.S. for 25 years after fleeing gangs that killed his wife and children.

“If I go back home they’ll kill me. So I figured I’d find a tree to sleep under, but Sister Idalina brought me to a shelter. The sister does the impossible at times to make sure that the deported feel welcomed and accepted,” said Martinez, who had permission to work in the U.S. but said his documents were ignored by immigration agents.

Many in Honduras expected an increase in deportations under Trump, who promised during the campaign that he would launch the “largest deportation program” in American history. Yet Sister Idalina said the numbers haven’t risen from the already high numbers under the Biden administration.

Instead, Sister Idalina said the increased threat of deportation has sown fear in immigrant communities.

“The migrants tell me that many construction sites are deserted because people are afraid to work, and that children aren’t going to school for fear of being grabbed while there,” she said.

Father Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit who heads a social research institute in El Progreso, predicts deportation numbers won’t rise.

“They’ll deport enough people in these first weeks to claim they’re keeping their promises, but after that the numbers won’t go up. There will be no massive deportations. But the levels of fear among migrants in the U.S. will definitely rise. If you’re afraid they’ll deport you, then you have to hide. You grow accustomed to living in fear,” Father Moreno said.

As he arrived back in Honduras, Funez said he hadn’t decided whether he would try again to enter the U.S.

He’s not alone in his indecision. Sister Idalina said that while many deported migrants in the past would quickly turn around and travel north again, they are now thinking hard about their choices, as in recent weeks it has become more difficult — and dangerous — to travel through Mexico and attempt to enter the U.S.

Maynor Ocampo, director of a church-run migrant shelter in Choloma, said north-bound migrants are few these days. Most recently, he said, his shelter has hosted Venezuelans who had returned disheartened from the north and were heading south to look for opportunities in Colombia or Peru.

Honduras suffers both a high concentration of land in the hands of a few wealthy families, as well as high levels of corruption, Father Moreno told OSV News. That makes it unlikely that returned migrants can easily restart their lives and earn the income to which their families have grown accustomed.

“There’s no political will to change anything, and without a serious proposal for agricultural reorganization here, nothing will change. The conditions that generated the original migration remain,” Father Moreno said.

Rio de Janeiro, April 10, 2025

Abp. Chrisóstomo Muniz of Rio de Janeiro and Olinda-Recife. Photo: vakinha.com     

Orthodox Christians in Brazil are raising funds to support His Eminence Archbishop Chrisóstomo Muniz of Rio de Janeiro and Olinda-Recife of the Polish Orthodox Church who must relocate his episcopal see after his landlord declined to renew the rental agreement for the current location

The Polish diocese in Brazil is made up almost entirely of Brazilians rather than immigrants from other countries. It used to belong to the schismatic Orthodox Metropolis of Portugal, Spain, and All of Brazil, which joined the Polish Church in 1989. The faithful in Brazil remained with the Polish Church even after the bishops in Portugal and Spain left in 2000.

The fundraising campaign aims to help the Polish Church’s local diocese secure a down payment for a new cathedral, ensuring the continuation of their missionary work bringing Orthodox faith to Brazilians.

The campaign states:

Hello to all our brothers and friends! His Eminence the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro and Olinda-Recife, Chrisóstomo Muniz, of the Eparchy of the Polish Orthodox Church in Brazil, recently received the news that he will have to leave his episcopal see, as his landlord no longer wishes to let the site for rent. Dom Chrisóstomo is the archpastor of a missionary church here in Brazil, focused on bringing the Orthodox faith to Brazilians. We created this campaign as an initiative to help the archbishop make a down payment on his new cathedral and see. Thank you for your contribution!

The campaign, which is just starting, aims to raise $1,650 (10,000 Brazilian reais).

Learn more about the cause to help Abp. Chrisóstomo Muniz here. To contribute, click on the green button “Quero Ajudar,” which will open the donation page. There, click on the link “I’m a Foreigner” at the top left of the page and enter your name, email, country, and the amount you want to donate in Brazilian reais. Any number can be entered in the “Documento” field.

Photo: ​vakinha.com     

Brazil: Help Orthodox church in urgent need of repairsAn Orthodox church in Brazil is in urgent need of repairs.

“>In 2023, readers of OrthoChristian helped the Polish Orthodox Church of the New Martyr Elizabeth in Valinhos, São Paul which was in need of urgent repairs. The rector later sent a Church in Brazil thanks benefactors who funded urgent roof repairsThanks in large part to the generosity of the readers of OrthoChristian.com, an Orthodox church in Brazil was able to raise the necessary funds for urgent repairs to its ceiling and roof.”>letter of thanks to our readers.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!

Romania, April 10, 2025

Photo: basilica.ro     

A beautiful new reliquary is being made for Archimandrite Cleopa (Ilie)Cleopa (Ilie), Archimandrite

“>St. Cleopa of Sihăstria, who was Romanian Synod canonizes 16 martyrs, confessors, and ascetics of the 20th-centuryThe Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church formally approved the canonization of more than a dozen martyrs, confessors, and ascetics of the 20th century at its session on July 11–12.”>canonized by the Romanian Orthodox Church last year along with 15 others last year.

The new home for the precious relics of St. Cleopa is being designed by iconographer Ana-Maria Zară, who recently posted images of the project, reports the Basilica News Agency.

“The memories of his spiritual steps through Romanian monastic spirituality will be inlaid in silver lines,” the artist writes.

Photo: basilica.ro “Each scene tries to be an echo of the gentle voice that resounded firmly among the ancient oaks in the forests of Moldova.”

The chiseling is being done by hand by the nuns at the Patriarchate’s workshop at Pasărea Monastery. Their work will “transform these artistic endeavors into a lasting testimony of the Light that shines through the humility and unwavering faith of the great spiritual father,” Zară said.

The same artist also designed the reliquary for The Great Elder Paisie (Olaru), Part 1He received anyone who knocked on the door of his cell—always, at any time. He would hear confessions without stopping, for several days in a row, day and night. No one knew when he slept or ate.

“>St. Paisie of Sihăstria, who was St. Cleopa’s spiritual father, as well as the reliquary for Fr. Dumitru StaniloaeStaniloae, Fr. Dumitru”>St. Dumitru Stăniloae, whose relics were uncovered Exhumation of relics of Sts. Dumitru Stăniloae and Sofian (Boghiu)The relics of two great 20th-century Romanian confessors were solemnly uncovered at monasteries near Bucharest on Monday.”>in July.

Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!