A message for the Great Fast from our hegumena, Mother Cecilia

“In this short time You have arranged to heal the great wounds of our soul.”

I typically dread the start of the Great Fast; this ascetical season is so incredibly difficult, beyond my strength—the fasting, the long services, the spiritual combat. Last week, I was already struggling so much with all my responsibilities, and I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly add to the struggle by taking on the disciplines of the Great Fast. I had a little breakdown. And on the other side of my breakdown I realized that I was trying too hard!—trying too hard to be virtuous, to be a good leader, to pray well, etc. That’s why it was too hard for me: the Lord wasn’t asking me to try so hard. 

I’m not sure what the Great Fast is going to look like for me, as I try to not try so hard in a time of year that is seen as a time to try harder! But what I do know is that I was deeply moved by this line from the Ambon Prayer (a prayer near the end of the Divine Liturgy) on Cheesefare Sunday (the day before the start of the Great Fast): “In this short time You have arranged to heal the great wounds of our soul.” It is God’s work, and He has planned out our healing! Yes, I need to cooperate, but all too often my efforts are a result of thinking it’s all up to me.

During these forty days, I invite you to join me in looking at the Lord and how He is loving us, rather than focusing on our ascetical efforts and whether or not we are doing them well. Join me in ignoring those condemning voices that tell us we are failing, that we are not good enough—those voices of the enemy that cause us to look only at ourselves (or at our neighbor, comparing ourselves and judging them). Let’s bring our wounds to the Divine Physician so that our ascetical practices (or, our inability to do them) will be healing medicine in His hands.

I also invite you to pray the Ambon Prayer, below, in its entirety. May God be with you on your Lenten journey!

“We thank you, O Lord Jesus Christ, that You have brought us to this opportune time of fasting towards salvation, for in this short time You have arranged to heal the great wounds of our soul, and to bring about the rejection of our many sins. Good Master, we pray You, remove from us any pharisaical hypocrisy in fasting, and banish all false sorrow. Drive from us all pride in our self-denial and moderation in deeds, words or thoughts. Fill us with light and the truth which You have taught. Strengthen us in the struggle against passions and in the war against sin. By alienation from passions prepare us to follow You by our fasting. Show us victory over the devil, that we may partake of Your death and resurrection, and rejoice in the joy which You have prepared for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For You are the God of mercy, and glory is Yours, together with the Father and the Son and Your all-holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now and ever and forever. Amen.”

The Entrance of Maddie & Rose

Christ the Bridegroom Monastery received two new dokimoi (postulants) during Vespers on Sunday, December 15. Madison ("Maddie") Hebert is from the Proto-Cathedral of St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in Sherman Oaks, California, and Rose Tsakanikas is from St. Sophia Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Garner, North Carolina. 

Dokimos means "one who is approved by testing." This first period of the monastic life is a time for the dokimos to try out the life, and it is also a time for the monastic community to become more deeply acquainted with the one who wishes to live this life. Her ability to live the life, to accept correction, to love and be loved, and to grow, is "tried." Like gold mined from the ground, she begins to experience the monastic purifying fire that will make her "pure"--in other words, "of one substance," all gold, oriented to the love of God.

The service for the reception of the dokimoi took place in the midst of Vespers in the monastery chapel, celebrated by Bishop Robert. The brief service included a special Epistle and Gospel reading, a prayer over each of the young women by the bishop, and the blessing of their head coverings and crosses, which the new dokimoi put on with the help of the youngest members of the monastic community. 

Bishop Robert then gave a beautiful homily about the monastic life. Comparing the entrance of the dokimoi into the monastery to the recent feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, he said:

"How fitting it is, with family, pastor, and now your sisters...to come to this day of entrance...ready to put yourself before God (recognize already the temple that you are by the power of the Holy Spirit...) and to make your very life a sign, as we just heard in the prayer, of the fleeting nature of this life and our life being about the kingdom of heaven. Monasticism is baptism radically lived. We begin this evening the celebration of the holy prophet Haggai. Monasticism is a community of women--or men--who each themselves have a prophetic role in the world today. And in one way we need not be overwhelmed by that aspect of the fullness of life that you now, in a very formal way, begin to discern, because it is the life itself that is prophetic--the life itself."

Supporting Maddie in person for the entrance were her parents, pastor Fr. Michael O'Loughlin and friend Libby Reichert. Rose's guests were her parents, grandparents and nine of her thirteen siblings. The monastic community and guests spent time over the weekend praying together and enjoying meals and recreation, discussing the pain of the impending separations, sharing funny stories, and widening their hearts to receive the many new members of their "family."

Please pray for Maddie and Rose as they begin to live monasticism and continue to discern God's will for their lives.

Please pray for Maddie & Rose, entering Sunday

It is with great joy that we ask you to please pray for two young women as they enter our monastery as dokimoi (postulants) on Sunday, December 15. Here are some very basic facts about them and some quotes from the "theological reflections" section of their applications. They have a good understanding of the purpose of monastic life; now they will find out what it's like to live it! (And therefore will need your prayers!)

Madison ("Maddie") Hebert

Santa Clarita, California

29 years old

Parish: Proto-Cathedral of St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church; Sherman Oaks, California

M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling; Franciscan University of Steubenville

"[Monastic life] is not primarily for the sanctification of the world, but rather the individual and through their individual holiness, they make healthier the greater body of Christ, the Church. The monastic life is a life of reception and reliance upon Jesus, not of production, but of uselessness in the world's eye."

"I hope to mature in receiving the extent of Jesus' love that He desires to gift to me, to 'let [myself] be drawn' to 'the one whom my soul loves,' allowing Him to, 'penetrate [...] all the fibers of [my] life'" (Blaise Arminjon, The Cantata of Love: A Verse-by-Verse Reading of the Song of Songs, 72; 99; 61).

Rose Tsakanikas

Garner, North Carolina

26 years old

Parish: St. Sophia Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church; Garner, North Carolina

M.A. in International Relations; Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

"It is not simply the place though that the monastic seeks. Christ was not seeking the right location to die with the empty hill of Golgotha the perfect place to raise three crosses. He was fulfilling the Father's will and returning to the Father. 'Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!' (Lk 23:46) The purpose of the monastic life then is to return to the Father by placing one's life in the hands of the Father. They do this by the same means as Jesus. They embrace the Paschal Mystery. Dying to this world, they are resurrected in the Heavenly Jerusalem."

"When Christ asks, 'Do you love me above all?', I wish to be able to say in all sincerity, 'There is nothing upon earth that I desire besides you'" (Ps 73:25).

Obedient Unto Sickness

A Reflection by Mother Petra

During the Great Fast, we were blessed to visit the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania.  We arrived in time to join the nuns for prayer in their chapel at noon, then joined them for lunch, spent the afternoon in conversation and sharing, prayed Vespers with them, and departed for our own monastery. 

In these nuns, who have decades more experience than our young monastery, we saw a mirror of the beauty and significance of our own monastic life.  A friend recently said to me, “Sometimes, while I’m driving around running errands, I remember all of you here, praying in your chapel, and I think—that’s why the world continues to exist.”  Of course, being immersed in our life, I don’t have any such sense myself!  Yet as I stood in their chapel, I looked upon these beautiful nuns and glimpsed the same reality:  Faithfulness like this upholds the world.  Like Abraham before the Face of God, interceding for Sodom (“Will You spare it for ten righteous men…?”).

We were moved by our conversations with the nuns, and grateful to receive spiritual wisdom and insight both from Mother Christophora, their abbess, and from the other nuns.  At once point, the topic of sickness in community emerged, and I asked Mother Christophora if she would speak about illness in the monastic life.  She explained that, upon entering the monastic life, it is a common experience to become ill.  Perhaps this is an attack of the evil one to discourage a young monastic, perhaps it is trial permitted by the Lord to try her vocation or purify her motivations, perhaps it is simply the natural result of the real intensity of our monastic life which takes a toll on the body.  But then she shared words of Fr. Thomas Hopko which deeply impressed each of us:  “In this country we don’t have elders, so our illnesses are our elders because they teach us obedience.”  She concluded with her own observation, “Afterall, He [Jesus] didn’t say ‘Take up your cross and fight it’!”

So often, it can seem that illness is an impediment to “real” life—keeping us from fully participating in liturgical prayer or other forms of asceticism, from fasting or keeping vigils to the extent we would desire, from accomplishing as much work as we would prefer, from accepting invitations to give talks or spiritual direction.  Yet isn’t this thwarting of personal expectation, desire, and preference the very definition of asceticism?  Bishop Benedict Aleksiychuk of Chicago recently commented to us that illness is an asceticism the Lord is giving us; we are not choosing it.  Therefore, it is a better asceticism because there is no self-will in it, but rather has the purity of coming direct from the mind of God. 

As a nun who has poor health, I am often pained to see the strain my illnesses place on my sisters.  But what a paradigm shift if we came to see each of these limitations, not as arbitrarily imposed by circumstances beyond our control, but rather as an invitation to deeper surrender and obedience in conformity to the will of the Father!  Since our visit, we have begun referring to our diagnoses as “elders” and “eldresses,” coming to recognize the necessities and treatments (all of them inconvenient!) as an obedience—an asceticism—given by the Lord to the whole community. 

I hope those of you who suffer from illness in the world will also be granted grace to trust that nothing touches you that does not pass through the hands of the Father, and that He knows what He is asking of you:  Perhaps not the service or work you desire to do, but trustful rest, slowing down, the willing sacrifice of pain offered to the Lord with faith in His goodness and power to transform our suffering so that it, like Christ’s, becomes a source of redemption in the world and in our own souls. 

I was recently reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the Sacrament of the Sick.  It teaches that “in a certain way he [the sick person receiving the anointing] is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s Redemptive Passion.  Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.” Further, the sick Christian “contributes to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God the Father.” (CCC, 1521-1522, emphasis mine).  Sickness is not useless, not meaningless!!!  Our surrender to the Father’s will in our sickness is tremendously significant work!  This does not mean we do not seek to alleviate suffering (we should!), but when our efforts fail, or when the treatments themselves prove to be a form of suffering (or, at the very least, inconvenience), let us pray for deeper faith to bow in obedience to the will of God revealed in our circumstances.  Let us cry out with Jesus in the Garden—after pouring out our pain and distress to our good Father, Who attentively gathers all our tears and holds us as we weep—“Yet not my will, but Your will, be done.”  May we be so conformed to Christ, the Obedient One Who was “obedient unto death” (Phil. 2:8), that we consent to be obedient unto sickness, as long as the Lord allows.

Mother Petra praying at the grave of Mother Alexandra (born Princess Ileana of Romania), the foundress of The Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, whose life and writing were significant in her own monastic formation.

 

Mother Theodora granted exclaustration

Mother Theodora, of her own volition, petitioned for and has been granted exclaustration (leave of absence) from the monastery for two years. We greatly value your prayers during this time of discernment. 

She will use her baptismal name, Celeste, during this time. According to Canon Law, during exclaustration a nun does not wear the monastic habit. 

Mother Cecilia's Institution as our Hegumena

 

On Sunday, December 31st, 2023, Mother Cecilia was officially instituted as our hegumena. Below are some of her reflections on the day of the institution as well as the meaning behind the design of her staff. 

May God grant Mother Cecilia many blessed years as our shepherdess! 

About the Significance of Today’s Date

I suggested today’s date to Bishop Robert as a possibility for my institution as hegumena because it is both the leave-taking of the feast of the Nativity (the Nativity having a lot of significance to me in my spiritual life) and because today, the Sunday after the Nativity, is the Byzantine feast of St. Joseph, the patron of my home parish. The Lord, however, had even more reasons in mind.

Recently, when I prayed and asked about the significance of the day, what immediately came to mind was that today is not only the feast of St. Joseph, but also of King David and St. James the Brother of the Lord (the day commemorates these important people in the family of Jesus). I asked what their significance is for this day. And I immediately understood: they are all shepherds, just like I am becoming! And they had shepherd’s staffs, just like I am receiving from the hand of the shepherd of our eparchy! David was literally a shepherd, and also became the king and shepherd of Israel. St. Joseph’s staff bloomed as a sign that he was to be chosen as the betrothed of Mary, and he was the shepherd of the Holy Family, protecting them and leading them to Egypt and back. And St. James was the first bishop of Jerusalem, with his bishop’s staff signifying that a bishop is a shepherd of the Church.

About the Design of My Staff

My staff was carved by Kyle Rosser, seminarian for the Diocese of Cleveland. I’m really grateful for his willingness to take on this project, and for his prayerful work. I sketched a design, and he turned it into a carving. I’d like to share with you the meaning behind the design (and the Lord will probably keep showing me His meanings!).

The first line of Psalm 22(23) is carved into the center of the design: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Even though this staff is being handed to me as a symbol of the protection, care and guidance that I must give to this monastic flock, it is really the Lord’s staff—the staff of the Good Shepherd. He is shepherding me as I shepherd, and shepherding through and with me.

This first line of the psalm also signifies for me the entire psalm, one of my favorites. The symbols carved into the staff represent parts of the psalm. The chalice signifies for me the line, “My cup overflows,” or, in the Septuagint, “Your cup inebriates me like the best wine.” I see myself as the cup, and the wine as the love of God (which is really God Himself). I feel called to consent to being empty so that God can fill me with Himself, and to focus most especially in my spiritual life to letting myself be loved. I believe that letting myself be loved is what God truly most desires, because this is why He made us, to love us. And I believe that letting myself be loved is the most important step in loving others, because we need His love with which to love, and in this way, “my cup overflows.” I believe that even as hegumena, my first and most important call is to let myself be loved.

The branch behind the chalice is an olive branch, and the staff is also carved out of olive wood. This symbol signifies oil, and refers to the line, “You anoint my head with oil.” Oil is used in Scripture and the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) in connection with the descent of the Holy Spirit. Kings were anointed with oil, and Christians are also anointed, chosen by God for Himself and for a special mission. Although a hegumena is not anointed with oil in the institution service, she is chosen by the Holy Spirit, and is called to “anoint” others with the other purpose of oil: healing.

Wine and oil…these are the medicines used by the Good Samaritan on the wounds of the man beaten by robbers. Wine to sanitize and oil to heal. I pray that the Lord bring healing to each of us, in the monastery and beyond, beaten by the robbers—the demons, and left half-dead by our passions. I desire to do my part to help Him bring about this healing—healing, which at its deepest level, means communion with the God who is love. This is why we nuns are in the monastery, and why each person was created. By looking at my staff, may I remember.

“A Man of Trust” -- Father Vasyl Lonchyna

 We'd like to share with you the story of the life of our very own, Mother Iliana's, great-grandfather, Father Vasyl Lonchyna, who was martyred for the faith on November 21st, 1946. Recently, his story was translated into English by Christine Gilbert, and so we are blessed to be able to share his story with you.

He was born on February 1, 1886, in the family of a wojt* in the village of Derniv in the Lviv region. He finished German gymnasium and Theological faculty of the Lviv University. In 1912, he got married (in marriage he had three children) and was ordained a priest. Until 1915, he was parochial vicar in the village of  Hlyniany (Lviv region). After that, he labored in the church of St. Paraskeva and its daughter church of St. Nicholas, both in Lviv.  He was a prisoner of  Thalerhof. He was very active in church ministry. Father Lonchyna was imprisoned on October 22, 1945, and in the spring of 1946 he was condemned to ten years  imprisonment and was sent to a camp in the Donetsk region. There, after  a brutal beating during an interrogation, he died on November 21, 1946.

Humble and gentle by nature, with a soft and compassionate heart, Father Vasyl showed amazing resilience, courage and uncompromisingness when there was a concern about important things  –  his faith in God, Church and parishioners. He never left his faithful, he never renounced the Greco-Catholic faith, he despised threats because, as he used to say, “I know what I will die for.” He consciously accepted his arrest, exile, and, eventually, his martyr’s death.

Born in a family respected among the villagers (Father Vasyl`s father was the wojt) and the boy was raised well and obtained a good education. While he was studying at the Lviv University in Theology Faculty, he attended the Third Velehrad Congress. The young student became enamored of the idea of the union of churches towards which Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was striving. The young man dreamed to become a genuine apostle of Christ, sacrificial and selfless…

Already in the first month of the 26-year-old priest’s ministry in the village of Hlyniany, he was noticed as the person with excellent pastoral and organizational skills. In 1915, Father Lonchyna was transferred to St. Paraskeva Church and the daughter church of St. Nicholas in Lviv,  where he labored until his arrest in 1945 (first as vicar, later as a pastor). 

Before long the priest faced a serious challenge:  he was suspected in “russophilism” and the Austrian government sent him to Thalerhof  (one of the most terrible concentration camps  of   the  20th Century;  there, in a picturesque area at the foot of the Alps, the imprisoned died from cruelty, hunger, and inhumane conditions).Who knows if Father Lonchyna would come back if the protohegumen of the Basilian Fathers had not interfered. After almost two years of imprisonment, the priest returned again to his family and parishioners. Being thankful to God for salvation, the shepherd returned to work with zeal. At the parish, he founded fellowships and fraternities, which developed successfully, in particular, The Apostolate of Prayer, the Fraternity of St. Nicholas, the Fraternity of Good Death (the first one in Lviv), and the Marian Sisterhood. In addition to that, Father Vasyl during a long period of time was head of the “Cantors’ Mutual Help” fellowship, since  he understood very well the value of the art of cantorship in the preservation of the Ukrainian tradition of liturgical singing. On the whole, Father Vasyl’s activity was multifaceted and active, and so his part in Theological Scientific Society should be mentioned here. 

Father Vasyl was not only a wise and good spiritual father for his flock, but also a wonderfully practical man. St. Nicholas church was not in its best condition, so the pastor, together with the help of his faithful (mostly poor residents of Zhovkva and Krakow suburbs), did not only rebuild his church:  thanks to his efforts the exterior of  the church was decorated by the work of the famous painter Petro Kholodny. 

Despite his comprehensive and fruitful activity, Father Lonchyna remained very mild and modest in everyday life. His daughter recalled: “Daddy was gentle, calm, noble, and very much loved by all. He always prayed with me before bed, teaching me to be good, kind, obedient, and to obey the elders…” 

The priest`s calm and sincere nature did not impede him to stand for his principles, for in such cases he was completely imperturbable and unbreakable. For example, in the so called “language case” in 1930 when he and two other priests were sued for daring to use the Ukrainian language in correspondence with the government. The priests managed to win the case, which was a great rarity at that time. 

Father Vasyl showed indomitable character in those difficult times when Soviet soldiers occupied Galicia and started the first persecutions of the Ukrainian Church. He did not have any illusions about the new government and said to his family that the priesthood will be in relative safety as long as Metropolitan Sheptytsky lives. The pastor, as his faithful, understood well the danger. More than once parishioners tried to convince the priest to leave the region. He invariably answered, saying that he will remain with his congregation until the end, and will not betray his vow. 

They began to call the priest in for questioning. One day when he was at the district prosecutor’s office, he heard a loud noise behind the door – it was indignant parishioners come to free their priest. The enraged prosecutor promised to release him. Amazed by the father`s authority among those people, the prosecutor tried to persuade Father to enter the service of the new government. He asked the priest does he not fear imprisonment and death… No, Father Lonchyna was not afraid, because “he knew what he will die for”. This whole story ended with the wife of that same prosecutor (who  really  did release him) bringing her child to Father Vasyl to be baptized. Obviously, they decided that such priest can be trusted. 

But the government didn’t leave Father Vasyl in peace, and he continued to be called in for  questioning. Fr. Havryil Kostelnyk who was infamous for his“reunification” activities, tried  to convince Father Vasyl to  transfer to Orthodoxy. Finally, on October 22, 1945, they arrested the unbreakable  priest. The “socially dangerous priest” was accused of many “sins,” such as being “a man of trust” during the German occupation (as the Ukrainian Central Committee called community representatives who protected their community’s interests).  Being in that position, Father Lonchyna especially cared for poor families in need of help. 

Father was convicted to ten years in prison. The priest was sent to Donetsk region in Novobutovka’s mine in the Makiyivka district where there were truly inhumane conditions: exhausting work, hunger, and dysentery, since the prisoners often ate straight from trash cans. And in all this horror, Father Vasyl preserved his human dignity and faith. He drew his strength from prayer. This made an impression on the prisoners: when they were unable to think about anything else other than finding something to eat, they saw someone next to them calmly, praying over a crumb of the daily ration and consuming it nobly as is from God’s hand. They often saw the priest  as he sat tired on a bench,  and having humbly bowed his head, spoke something to the Lord… 

In the camp Father lost his health very quickly. But even in this state the government did not leave the nearly powerless priest in peace. They again started to call him for questioning. During one such interrogation he was beaten so hard that he could not stand on his feet again. In his 60th year of life, on the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, November 21, 1946, Father Lonchyna departed into eternity. Another wonderful person passed away, a person who knew how to love God and people and be faithful to the ideals of his own faith up until his last breath.

*“A Polish senior civil administrative officer and the highest representative of the government of a rural gmina, i.e., of a commune (gmina) comprising only villages... The word wójt is derived from Latin  advocatus  via German Vogt.” –Wikipedia.