THE PRODIGAL SON

The Prodigal Son is so-called not because he wandered from the path of righteousness, but rather because he foolishly squandered his inheritance--the good gifts God has bestowed upon us all.    (According to Webster's, the word means "wastefully or recklessly extravagant").  Life itself is the greatest gift of God, given that we might glorify Him, offering up as a pure sacrifice all that we are--both soul and body--as a pure sacrifice. 

As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."  And so--contrary to what the pro-choice advocates proclaim--we do not have the right to our own body, let alone to the life of the child growing within the womb.  Both belong to God.  Strictly speaking, we own nothing whatsoever--not even our own bodies.  And surely whatever wealth and talents we may seem to possess are given by God... we are but His stewards.  Rightly, then, does the elder brother complain to his father that the Prodigal has "devoured thy living with harlots."

But surely we have all wandered into a far country (fled from the presence of God); we have joined ourselves to harlots... if not literally, then to the sinful passions and the idols we have created for ourselves; we have suffered a spiritual famine and sought to feed ourselves on swinish thoughts and desires--though the more we indulge ourselves, the less satisfaction we receive.  As St. Augustine has written, "Our hearts are ever restless till they find their rest in thee."  But have we as well followed the Prodigal's example and taken that ultimate step of humble repentance--confessing that we are unworthy of the Father's love, yet beseeching Him to receive us as his hired servant?

For truly God's love is boundless and unconditional... He does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return to Him and live.  And then--while we are still afar off--He will run to us and embrace us, restoring to us the tokens of our rightful inheritance, and opening unto us the gates of Paradise... that we might be made worthy of eternal life in His Kingdom.

THE HOLY NEW MARTYRS OF RUSSIA

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose," writes the Holy Apostle.  The devastation inflicted upon the Russian Land--and particularly the Church--during those eighty years under the Communist Yoke is difficult for those of us living in the "Free World" to fully comprehend.  The soil of Holy Russia was drenched with the blood of the Holy New Martyrs, who freely chose to endure unimaginable trials and tribulations for the sake of Christ. 

Yet it was by this means that the Russian Church received their second Baptism, by which it was tested and purified like unto gold refined in a fiery furnace.  And so did these martyrs--who were "accounted as sheep for the slaughter"--bear witness that they were "more than conquerors through Him that loved them."  And indeed, "if God is for us, who can be against us?"

The Godless Authority strove by any possible means to eliminate the very idea of God from the consciousness of the Russian people, to create a new Soviet Man to replace the Image of God, to exchange the ineffable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven for a "worker's paradise" that turned out in the end to be hell on earth.  Yet as St. Paul assures us, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers... nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Christ Himself promised that the very gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church He established, which is "the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."  He also assures us that the faithful shall be persecuted, betrayed and "hated by all men," but that nevertheless... those who persevere unto the end shall be saved and glorified in God's heavenly Kingdom. 

We here in America have in large part been spared the full impact of the destructive violence that has engulfed much of the world during the past hundred years. Nevertheless, prophetic voices proclaim that what began in Russia will end in America. Let us, therefore, strive to prepare ourselves for the trial that is sure to come, remaining steadfast in the Faith--that by the grace of God, we might endure unto the end.