CONSECRATED LIFE DAY

 

Today, February 2, is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and also the World Day for Consecrated Life, a commemoration instituted by Pope St. John Paul II in 1997. The World Day for Consecrated Life takes place on this feast the Holy Father explained, because “the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is an eloquent icon of the total offering of one’s life for all those who are called to show forth in the Church and in the world, by means of the evangelical counsels the characteristic features of Jesus, the chaste, poor and obedient one.”

In his message for the 1st World Day for Consecrated Life, St. John Paul explained that the day has three purposes:

 In the first place, it answers the intimate need to praise the Lord more solemnly and to thank him for the great gift of consecrated life, which enriches and gladdens the Christian community by the multiplicity of its charisms and by the edifying fruits of so many lives totally given to the cause of the Kingdom …

In the second place, this day is intended to promote a knowledge of and esteem for the consecrated life by the entire People of God …

The third reason regards consecrated persons directly. They are invited to celebrate together solemnly the marvels which the Lord has accomplished in them, to discover by a more illumined faith the rays of divine beauty spread by the Spirit in their way of life, and to acquire a more vivid consciousness of their irreplaceable mission in the Church and in the world. Immersed in a world which is often agitated and distracted, taken up sometimes by the press of responsibilities, consecrated persons also will be helped by the celebration of this annual World Day to return to the sources of their vocation, to take stock of their own lives, to confirm the commitment of their own consecration.

UKRAINIAN MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTA

 

Now that we start a new month (where did January go?) it is time to get back to our saints, the real purpose of this Blog.

BL. JOSOPHATA (MICHAELINA) HORDASHEVSKA, another new Ukrainian saint, was born 20 November 1869 in Lviv ( then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire now Ukraine), into a family who were members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. At the age of 18, she considered consecrating her life to God in a contemplative monastery of the Basilian nuns, then the only Eastern-rite women's religious congregation.

She attended a spiritual retreat which was preached by a Basilian monk, Jeremiah Lomnytskyj, whose spiritual guidance she sought. With his permission, she took a private vow of chastity for one year. She was to renew this vow twice.

Ethnic Ukrainians, living under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were very poor, both materially and spiritually. Women and children were especially neglected. Immorality, illiteracy, superstition, and drunkenness were rampant in the villages.

Father Lomnytsky and co-founder Father Kyrylo Seletsky, pastor of Zhuzheliany, seeing that there was a need for active religious sisters to meet the social needs of the poor and needy faithful of the church, had decided to establish a women's congregation which would follow an active life of service and felt that Michaelina would be an appropriate candidate to found such a congregation.

When she agreed, she was sent in June 1892 to the Polish Roman Catholic Felician Sisters to experience the life of community which followed an active consecrated life.

She returned to Lviv two months later and, on 24 August 1892, took the religious habit of the new congregation, receiving the name Josaphata, in honor of the Ukrainian Catholic martyr Josaphat Kuntsevych (see Blog 10/30/24).

Sister Josaphat then went to Zhuzhelyany, and at the age of 22 became the first Superior of the seven young women who had been recruited for the new institute, training them in the spirit and charism of the Sisters Servants: "Serve your people where the need is greatest".

For the rest of her life, she led the new congregation, through its growth and development. She and her new congregation established daycare centers for children, supplied basic medicines, taught children to read and write, taught the bible and lives of the saints to adults and children, sewed vestments for the clergy, encouraged upkeep of churches, and cared for the sick during cholera and typhus epidemics.

She even sent sisters abroad. In 1902, four sisters were sent to Canada to serve the Ukrainian immigrants. By 1906, the Sisters Servants were in Croatia, and by 1911, they were in Brazil.

By 1902, the congregation numbered 128 sisters, in 26 convents across the country. They were able to hold their first General Chapter in August of that year, at which Bl. Jpsophata was elected the first superior general of the congregation, 

Bl. Josaphata’s life was filled with hardships and sufferings: trials that failed to neither discourage her energetic spirit nor her inner joy and peace. 

Internal divisions led the blessed to tender her resignation to the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv. Under the new superior general appointed by the Metropolitan Archbishop, she and her natural sister, Arsenia, were denied permission to take permanent vows. 

Due to her canonical status of still being in temporary vows, Bl. Josophata was ineligible to participate in the next General Chapter of the congregation. Nonetheless, she was elected vicaress general of the congregation in absentia, with the delegates of the chapter petitioning the metropolitan that she be allowed to make her permanent vows. This request was granted, and she did so the following day, 11 May 1909, and assumed the office to which she had been voted.

Bl. Josaphata suffered stoically as her body was ravaged by painful tuberculosis of the bone and she died at the age of 49 on April 7, 1919. Her  remains were transferred in 1982 from the closed and abandoned cemetery in Chervonohrad (formerly Krystynopil), Ukraine to the Generalate of the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate in Rome. There, hundreds of people come to pray for the intercession of Blessed Josaphata for their physical and spiritual needs.

According to the testimony of Philomena Yuskiv, "She showed her love for her people through her heart-felt desire to lift them up morally and spiritually; she taught children, youth and women, served the sick, visited the poor and needy, taught liturgical chant and looked after the Church's beauty." Numerous miracles are ascribed due to her intercession after her death.

On 27 June 2001, she was proclaimed Blessed by St. Pope John Paul II in Lviv, in a beatification ceremony during the Holy Liturgy in the Byzantine rite. Over 1 million people attended. Bl.Josaphata speaks to modern people about the beauty of a radical life according to the Gospel and the need for compassion and solidarity with those in need. She shows that even small acts of love can change the world

THE LUCKY 1%

 

It is normal for seniors to tell the present generation how great their youth was, remembering the uncomplicated  good times, comparing them to the ills of today.  But here is proof that growing up in the 40s and 50s was a  special  time, perhaps never to be repeated.

 If you were born between 1930 and 1946, you belong to an incredibly rare group: only 1% of your generation is still alive today. At ages ranging from 77 to 93, your era is a unique time capsule in human history.

Here’s why:

You were born into hardship. Your generation climbed out of the Great Depression and bore witness to a world at war. You lived through ration books, saved tin foil, and reused everything—nothing was wasted.

You remember the milkman. Fresh milk was delivered to your door. Life was simpler and centered around the basics. Discipline came from both parents and teachers, with no room for excuses.

Your imagination was your playground. Without TVs, you played outside and created entire worlds in your mind from what you heard on the radio. The family gathered around the radio for news or entertainment.

Technology was in its infancy. Phones were communal, calculators were hand-cranked, and newspapers were the primary source of information. Typewriters, not computers, recorded thoughts.

Your childhood was secure. Post-WWII brought a bright future—no terrorism, no internet, no global warming debates. It was a golden era of optimism, innovation, and growth.

You are the last generation to live through a time when:

Black-and-white TVs were cutting-edge.Highways weren’t motorways. Shopping meant visiting downtown stores. Polio was a feared disease.

 While your parents worked hard to rebuild their lives, you grew up in a world of endless possibilities. You thrived in a time of peace, progress, and security that the world may never see again.

 If you’re over 77 years old, take pride in having lived through these extraordinary times. You are one of the lucky 1% who can say, "I lived through the best of times."

Paintings: Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927) American Impressionist 

HOPE FOR YOUTH

 

Everyday one reads about the youth in our country, or around the world, and the negative effects they have on culture and society.  Then one or two (or more) young people show up at the monastery and we gasp at how joyous, caring and just downright great they are. So does the monastery attract only the special ones, or are they the norm? I would like to think (and am sure) that  the majority of today's young people have HOPE for the future and are working to make a better world.`                                                                                                                      

"I also want to encourage you to encourage young people. Young people are the first pilgrims of hope! They thirst for meaning, authenticity and true encounters. But be careful, let the young meet with the elderly, because the elderly are also witnesses of hope. Young people, when they go to the elders, receive some special mission. Do this work, which is very important. Help young people to discover Christ, because Christ is the answer. Help them to grow in faith, to dare to make courageous choices and to become missionary disciples of Jesus, living witnesses of the Gospel. Pass on to them the boldness to dream of a more fraternal world and accompany them, so that they may become artisans of hope in their families, schools and workplaces.  Pope Francis   (Jan. 10, 2025)

                                          Local youth putting in new deck at OLR

STRUGGLE AND HOPE

 

“We know that hope is often put to the test. Our world is marked by war and by so many injustices; it is torn by individualism. All this often generates doubt, fear of the future and very often desperation. But we Christians bring a certainty: Christ is our hope. He is the door of hope, always. He is the good news for this world! And this hope – it is curious – does not belong to us. Hope is not a possession you can put in your pocket. No, it does not belong to us. It is a gift to share, a light to transmit. And if hope is not shared, it falls.

Do not be afraid to respond to this call! Being missionaries means letting oneself be shaken by the Holy Spirit. I recommend that you read the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles and see what the Holy Spirit does. It is the Spirit who guides the Church, He stirs hearts. And hope is born here. At times, letting oneself be shaken by the Holy Spirit can mean coming out of our habitual mindsets and even accepting to “mess up”. The Holy Spirit is the Master.”

                                 Pope Francis' words to the leaders of the “Congrès Mission”

 

The above mural, Struggle and Hope, at Portland Community Collage, was designed by former PCC art faculty member William Dyas Garnett (1939-2004) and painted in 1988 by over 50 community volunteers. While it celebrates the struggle for political freedom and land reform in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua during the time of U.S. Military involvement when the region was in the grip of widespread poverty and political repression, it certainly illustrates the on-going struggle not only of these countries  but of many across the globe. This mural celebrates the hope for grassroots movements in healthcare, education and land reform amidst this turmoil.

 The painting memorializes two casualties of this struggle. On the left is the funeral procession for Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, a heroic advocate for freedom and justice and an outspoken critic of government political oppression and torture, who was assassinated in 1980 while performing Mass. On the right is Portland engineer Ben Linder, shown working on a hydroelectric dam project to bring energy to local farmers in the remote mountain region of El Cua-Bocay, where he and Nicaraguan co-workers Pablo Rosales and Sergio Hernandez were killed in an attack by U.S. backed Contras in 1987.

HOPE HAS RISEN

 

At Christmas, we received a card from France from the Abbey of Jouarre, where our foundress Mother Benedicta Duss started.  We were all struck by the one line on the card from NABIL ANTAKI a doctor in Aleppo, Syria.

In 1986 with his wife Leyla and brother Georges Sabé, he founded the association “The Ear of God”, a project that would involve him in solidarity with the most needy people in his city.

 

In 2012, with the war, “The Ear of God” became the “Blue Marists”. Currently the group in Aleppo, Syria, has 150 volunteers who work helping the displaced and refugees of Aleppo, promoting and encouraging care and health service programs, labor, educational and social projects, and also distributing food packages and hygiene kits, distributing food plates and visiting the most vulnerable people. 

“We are not a charitable association, we are an association of solidarity. We want to live with the poor and the displaced in order to alleviate their suffering and to develop humanity and hope. This is our goal. To sow hope. To help people to live and to stay in their country.”

 "To Hope is to live fastened when everything trembles

It is to accept the risk when everything is assured
It is to propose a presence when everything is senseless
To Hope, is to live inhabited by love,
nourished by tenderness,
encouraged by peace
to Hope, is to advance when everything seems to be blocked
when everything seems to be finished
when all is condemned
It is to live at the  limit, at the frontier, at the extreme
of an essential choice:

'do not fear anything,
I carry you in the palms of my hand
I make you my friend'

 To hope, is to say Magnificat
You are in my life
and I am in yours
an eternal poem of Love
It is Hope which helps us to exceed, to go beyond the gift and the sacrifice of self, to love more than one could imagine, to believe with all our heart and not only with all our reason.  Hope means that Jesus, who was incarnate and died on the cross for us, has risen and He lives in us."

BAPTISM- THE BEGINNING OF HOPE

 

The BAPTISM OF JESUS, is a sign of HOPE for all in a life that Christ has promised we too will participate in. It is the hope that can come only when we realize that through the birth and death of Jesus,  we have been baptized into new life through Him who was baptized by John in the Jordan River.

 

                                           Baptism of Jesus by Ivanka Demchuk- Ukraine

This feast should also be a reminder of our own baptism where we are born into new life in Jesus bringing us Hope. Hope that can only come from our Savior, whose birth we have just celebrated. He who came into this world as a light in the darkness, where we have new life and where death has lost its sting.

"If we are true to our Baptism, we will spread the light of the hope—Baptism is the beginning of hope, that hope—of God, and we will be able to pass on to future generations the meaning of life."

Just as this Advent season gave us hope of new life, so too does the baptism of Jesus, for baptism is the sacrament of hope and of new beginnings.

The Christmas season comes to an end with the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.