Christ Pantocrator

The following letter from an Orthodox nun to a troubled layman is a warm, sane and usable remedy for anyone troubled with doubts about the mercy and compassion of God.

Dear P.,

Christ is Risen!

I was glad you called this weekend and let me know how you are doing. It sounds like you have a pretty good case of Calvinist-Jansenist indigestion [1]: uncomfortable and debilitating, but not inevitably fatal. A lot of western converts to Orthodoxy—Americans, Germans, etc., suffer from this to one degree or another, especially early on in spiritual life. Our gerondissa at St. Paul’s calls it the Medieval Sickness, a combination of moralistic nitpicking, pride, secretiveness,lack of faith in God, and lack of belief in the compassion of God. It makes one pretty joyless, prone to ill-considered and short-lived bursts of ascetic effort (often as not alternating with equally ill-considered and short-lived bursts of carnal distractions of one sort or another), often melancholy, often judgmental. If you know much about the early history of New England colonization, you can see that the Puritans represent the acme of this spiritual type.

Those who have this mindset tend, by nature or training, to see God always as the stern, unappeasable Judge, whose dealings with man are always based on law and justice, and who demands of us an exact fulfillment of rules and rubrics. And we, in fulfilling these, do not really hope for, or believe in, the transfiguration and renewal of our souls and minds. At best, we hope that our scrupulous fulfillment of the Law will induce God to overlook our flaws and sins which we, in our heart of hearts, feel remain always with us, unforgiven, unchanged, and unchangeable. In such an atmosphere, one’s spiritual life is not really a journey into communion with God through repentance and deification, so much as a dreary pendulum of efforts to appease an inscrutable and implacable God, interspersed with the outbreaks of resentment and frustration this causes us. Naturally, as you have observed, this leads either to a mental breakdown, or to the abandonment of participation in church life, which we come to feel is not “working” for us. This is not an Orthodox view of God. And having this false image of God makes having an Orthodox experience of God difficult.

People born in what remains of the Byzantine world don’t suffer from this as readily as we do. (They have other crosses to carry, of course.) And unless they’ve dealt with it in working with westerners, they don’t always find it easy to understand. Greeks, for example, can be rebellious, worldly, egotistical, materialistic, avaricious, cunning hedonists, but they have a basic optimism and confidence in the goodness of God, the beauty of the world, and their own worth as immortal persons, which makes repentance less complicated for them. Even if they have turned away from the Church, in their hearts they still have a fundamental understanding that God is a loving Father, the Theotokos is a longsuffering Mother who will come to their aid if they turn to her, and the world of creation is ultimately a place of meaning and beauty. In a funny way, they enjoy a sinful or worldly life, while they’re living it, more than we do, because they enjoy life more than we do, and they repent in a more child-like way because they can still touch a child’s belief that home—the Church—really is the place where

“when you go there, they have to take you in.”

The dread Pantocrator, gazing down in majestic judgment from high up in the dome of the city cathedral is also Christouli mou, “my little Christ,” who really listens when you run in to your neighborhood church on the way to work to cry and light a candle because your daughter is in trouble at school. The untouchable and all-holy Mother of God is also Panayitsa mou, who really will take your part before the court of heaven because, just like your own mom, she’ll always stick up for her children, no matter how badly they’ve behaved.

Once, a man was being chased by the police for having committed murder. He ran to our monastery, banged on the gates to be let in, and claimed sanctuary there. (Under Greek law, he would be safe as long as he remained inside the walls.) He cried until they let him in, and then demanded to see Fr. R., saying he wanted to go to confession. Fr. R. came down, took him into the catholicon, and closed the doors. Soon the police arrived, having traced him and found his car down the road. They also banged on the gates wanting the man brought out. Fr. R. came out of the church, wearing his epitrachelion, and told the police they needn’t wait. The man was with him, but had business to finish with God first, and when they were through, the man would come down to the police station and turn himself in. The police asked who would stand surety for the man’s appearance. “The Apostle Paul,” Fr. R. said. The police left, and after a while the man came out of the church, peaceful and changed in his countenance. The sisters fed him, and he drove away to turn himself in. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced.

That is the Christian soul of a man, and a culture, at work. The man knew he was guilty of a crime at law, but he knew also that his heaviest burden was the sin that lay upon his soul. Instead of committing suicide, or taking thirty hostages in a shopping mall, he ran to the church to be washed and clothed and fed, spiritually and physically, before going to make his peace with Caesar. He accepted punishment in this world with a peaceful heart, knowing that he was already freed of punishment in the world to come. In the same way, every man wounded by sin in a fallen world, who runs for salvation to the Church, finds the arms of Christ open to him.

You have seen for yourself that the sort of thinking you mention in your letter is crazy and self-defeating. God does not sit up in the sky, setting us impossible tasks we must perform at any cost, no matter how unsuited they may be to our nature and abilities. He doesn’t begrudge our innocent pleasures, or enjoy our failures or mistakes. Humility is not self-hatred, and self-reproach is not neurotic self-obsession. “If I do something I enjoy doing, then it is definitely not God’s will… If I am asked to do something I have no talent or desire to do, this is God’s will… I must always be suffering.” A classic exposition of the Jansenist manifesto! Fortunately, it has nothing to do with Christ, or with life in Christ. You are on the right track when you suppose the answer lies in looking at Christ, and following His commandments. And those commandments are compassed like this:

“To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. In this is all the law, and the prophets.”

Trials and sufferings will come upon us, if we are looking to keep this Great Commandment, but they will come unsought. We needn’t invent them for ourselves, by putting gravel in our shoes and ashes on our food, or forcing ourselves to be a bad radio announcer when we could be a good landscape gardener because we think God will finally like us (or at least let us slip past His eye) if we do as many of the things we hate as possible.

Self-accusation is also a big bear-trap for self-hating Puritans like you. I was reading an article by Elder Sophrony of Essex [2] last week. Someone was asking him about the psychological and emotional problems so prevalent in western life, and whether he felt that secular psychiatry offered any help. He said that, with the exception of syndromes directly attributable to malfunctioning brain chemistry, he felt that psychiatrists often do more harm than good by making people focus too much on themselves and too little on God and their neighbor. He said they begin to concentrate too much on the “designated problem,” often not the real problem anyway, and then try to change it by yet more self-analysis and introspection, which only makes us prey to many kinds of illusion. In this interview, done a couple of years before his repose, Fr. Sophrony said he doesn’t advocate too much introspection even for monastics or his other spiritual children.

“You know, we pick and poke away, hunting for every little mistake or thought, and we make ourselves crazy, all for nothing. It becomes an obsession, and really makes a wall between us and God, leaving no room for grace to act. Yes, we must know in general our sins, and that we are sinful and deluded beings, but we must never lose sight of the fact that we come to God in prayer, not to be obsessed with our sins, but to find His mercy. Otherwise the devil takes everything away from us… joy, hope, peace, love… and leaves us nothing but this obsession with our mistakes. That is not repentance. That is neurosis.”

The remedy? I knew a woman once, a spiritual child of Elder Sophrony’s, a middle-aged married woman with several children, who was overtaken suddenly by a painful psycho-spiritual illness: severe depression with suicidal thoughts, which took the form of religious mania. She was obsessed with forebodings of damnation and despair of forgiveness; made long catalogues of her minutest daily thoughts, no matter how fleeting, etc. In desperation, with her marriage almost over, she went to Essex and begged Fr. Sophrony for help. He told her to throw out all of her notebooks of sins, to read the Gospel of St. John every day for a year, to say the Jesus Prayer as much as she could [3], to receive Holy Communion as often as possible, and to come back to Essex for some time every year, to rest and pray there. She did as he said, and made slow progress at first; but after a few years she became free and whole again.

She told me at first that she had to say the Prayer out loud as much as she could, because the minute she stopped, she began falling back into her “old crazy mind” as she called it; but little by little, she began having more time free of her fears. The Gospel of St. John, after many repetitions, forced her to see that God is really a God of love, who cares for her in a personal sense. This was reinforced by her practice of the Prayer and her visits with Fr. Sophrony.

Over the course of time, she proved to have quite a gift of intercessory prayer for others and spent the remainder of her life, as her children were grown, living a quiet life, “only a housewife” to all appearances, but spending much time each day in prayer for others, a form of charity in which she was much aided in the great compassion for the sufferings of others that her own torment had given her.

You asked for suggestions. Naturally, anything I offer is subject to your own confessor’s direction, but the following suggestions come to mind: Your case may not be so extreme… but it can become so. I would suggest you begin making an effort to cut off these darkly accusing thoughts by saying the Prayer when they arise, and also reading the Gospel as much as you can. You might find it helpful to simply prepare your confession from a prayer book for now—using the list of sins in the Erie prayer book* or another, but using this to prepare only on the day you go to confession. Don’t allow yourself to brood over them outside that allotted time of preparation for the Sacrament. For this period, you shouldn’t need more than an hour, at the most, to prepare for confession.

Once you’re done, you’re done. No cheating. After you go to confession, drive away by the Jesus Prayer all thoughts which try to remind you of the sins confessed, or make you think you’re still not “really forgiven”. Don’t be discouraged if they return, and don’t make yourself more upset by castigating yourself over it. Just try, as peacefully as you can, to keep saying the Prayer. You may also find help by saying several knots, or a rope, to the Mother of God. She’s very good at helping us up when we feel lost in the uttermost depths. So, pray simply, and simply pray. Don’t brood over the unchangeable past. Self-accusation time should be limited to once a week, or whenever you prepare for confession, for now.

Don’t worry if you don’t feel joyful on feastdays or other times when you “ought” to feel joyful. Joy is a gift, like life and sunlight and air and flowers and food. It comes and goes, according to its own rhythms and seasons, and its presence doesn’t mean someone’s holy, any more than its absence means someone’s doomed. For beginners in spiritual life, feelings are not as important as acts and habits.

We must build the habits of prayer and life in Christ, and let the feelings follow when (or if) they may. When you pray, don’t get all worked up into a fret by monitoring yourself constantly, trying to measure how many seconds of compunction you achieved or whether you felt 1.5 degrees more repentant than yesterday. Just say the Prayer, and keep your mind on the words of the Prayer. The more we scrutinize ourselves, the less we’re paying attention to God. Might as well chuck the prayer rope and spend an hour looking in the mirror instead. If your mind wanders, don’t make a mental note to accuse yourself of being distracted from 1:06 to 1:09 on Tuesday. Just gently put your thought back on the words of the Prayer, and use the words as an anchor to tug you back to the here-and-now if you drift away. That’s enough.

It may be, as you suspect, that you’ve collected a few mistaken ideas about how to live an Orthodox spiritual life, and that these mistaken ideas have colored some of your experiences and influenced some of your decisions, especially those having to do with monastic life. Well, mistakes are just mistakes: chances to learn better and different ways of being and doing, not indictments of our right to exist or our hope for salvation. Give thanks to the Lord that in His mercy He is opening your eyes to see these things now, and to think and act upon them with His help. It’s spring now in the natural world, and springtime for the soul too. You have a chance to do a little spring cleaning in your natural house, and start off a summer of new growth with cleaner windows on the world and fresher, brighter rooms inside your heart. Do not be tricked into believing the demons who tell you that you are

“committing a blasphemy even at Liturgy, because you do not ever seem to get better.”

It is they who are locked in their hatred of God and man, and who blaspheme, full of rage because they know they will never change, and hatred for us because we can. First of all, it is not our task to judge whether we are ever “getting any better.” That is the Lord’s business, not ours, nor yet the devil’s. Secondly, you are a beloved child of the living God, Who died and rose that you might also die and rise, and live forever in joy with Him. The Lord Who broke the bars of death and harrowed the pit of hell is quite capable of bringing you safe home to Heaven, if you will get out of the way and let Him in. “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Be of good cheer. I wish you well, and hope to hear from you again.

In Christ,
M.

Source

by Fr. Gregory Jensen

Troparion of St George

As the deliverer of captives and defender of the poor, healer of the infirm and champion of kings, victorious great martyr George intercede with Christ our God for our souls salvation.

Our last conversation focused on the macro-level of the Church’s moral witness on matters of war and peace. In this second post I want to focus on the what is for me more interesting, observation micro-level and pastoral observation made by the fathers of the Sacred Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in their encyclical , “The Basis of the Social Concept.” Specifically, I am interested in the positive view the fathers hold for military service for Christians in general and of the Christian warrior in particular.

The fathers are explicit on these matters (VIII.2):

In all times, Orthodoxy has had profound respect for soldiers who gave their lives to protect the life and security of their neighbours. The Holy Church has canonised many soldiers, taking into account their Christian virtues and applying to them Christ’s world: “Greater love hath no man but this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13).

Reflecting on the icon of St George the Great-Martyr and Trophy Bearer, they observe that in the battle between the saint and the dragon the Church sees

“vividly . . . that evil and the struggle with it should be completely separated, for in struggling with sin it is important to avoid sharing in it. In all the vital situations where force needs to be used, the human heart should not be caught by bad feelings akin to evil spirits and their like.”

They continue by observing that the just use of force is only possible if one has

“victory over evil in one’s heart” (VIII.4)

With somewhat inelegant phrasing they argue that the tradition of the Church assert “love in human relations” while at the same time “resolutely reject[ing] the idea of non-resistance to evil by force.” For this reason, and here I think the bishops speak not simply prudentially but normatively,

“The Christian moral law deplores not the struggle with sin, not the use of force towards its bearer and not even taking another’s life in the last resort, but rather malice in the human heart and the desire to humiliate or destroy whosoever it may be” (VIII.4, emphasis added).

For military personnel this standard is, and again to quote the synodal fathers, a “lofty” one and demands not only a great ascetical effort from them but “a special concern for the military,” by pastors who are called by Christ to “educate them [in] faithfulness” to their call to defend the innocent and the defenseless against unjust aggressors. As I have mentioned in other places, the vocation of the Christian warrior is a dangerous and demanding one requiring as it does that the solider stand physically between the aggressor and his intended target and that he respond with force—even deadly force if needed—and yet do so without malice.

This requires to be sure not only intense self-discipline and physical courage equal to any monastic asceticism, it also demands that the warrior bear the physical, psychological and spiritual scars of his service. This burden is made all the more difficult I think when military personnel (to say nothing of law enforcement professionals) are greeted with a lack of appreciation for the positive good of their service to say nothing of open hostility and moral censure what their service.

It is important to understand that the council fathers’ reflection on war—and so my own thoughts on their words—are presented within a particular theological understanding not simply of war but of peace (section VIII.5). Peace is not, to risk a cliché, the absence of conflict but the fruit of

“God’s promises recorded in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.”

Unlike the partial, and often deceptive, views defended and advanced by us the rulers of this world who would lord it over others (see Mark 10:35-45), the Church understands peace as

“a beneficial gift of God, for which we pray and solicit God for our own sake and the sake of all people.”

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I apologize for this late notice but I was informed earlier today that a Vesperal Liturgy commemorating the Nativity of the Theotokos will be held at St. Paul Antiochian Church tomorrow, Tuesday, September 7 at 6:30pm (get map to St. Paul’s).

Some background (from: Orthodoxwiki):

The Nativity of the Theotokos is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on September 8.

The Holy Virgin and Theotokos Mary was born to elderly and previously barren parents by the names of Joachim and Anna, in answer to their prayers. Orthodox Christians do not hold to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in which it is supposed that Mary was preserved from the ancestral sin that befalls us all as descendents of Adam and Eve, in anticipation of her giving birth to the sinless Christ. The Orthodox believe that Mary indeed received the ancestral sin, having been conceived in the normal way of humanity, and thus needed salvation like all mankind. Orthodox thought does vary on whether Mary actually ever sinned, though there is general agreement that she was cleansed from sin at the Annunciation.

I apologize for this late notice but I was informed earlier today that a Vesperal Liturgy commemorating the Nativity of the Theotokos will be held at St. Paul Antiochian Church tomorrow, Tuesday, September 7 at 6:30pm (get map to St. Paul’s).

Some background (from: Orthodoxwiki):

The Nativity of the Theotokos is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on September 8.

The Holy Virgin and Theotokos Mary was born to elderly and previously barren parents by the names of Joachim and Anna, in answer to their prayers. Orthodox Christians do not hold to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in which it is supposed that Mary was preserved from the ancestral sin that befalls us all as descendents of Adam and Eve, in anticipation of her giving birth to the sinless Christ. The Orthodox believe that Mary indeed received the ancestral sin, having been conceived in the normal way of humanity, and thus needed salvation like all mankind. Orthodox thought does vary on whether Mary actually ever sinned, though there is general agreement that she was cleansed from sin at the Annunciation.

Michael Pegades, Missionary

Many of you will remember Michael Pegades who spoke to us about his plans to do missionary work in Tanzania with the Orthodox Christian Missionary Center (OCMC). Michael has been in Tanzania for about a month and blogs about his experiences there. You can keep up with Michael on his blog.

Here Michael reflects on one cultural difference he encountered:

Habari za leo?

I thought I’d start this installment with a typical Tanzanian greeting. Habari za leo? means What’s new? or literally News of today? In Tanzania, the greeting process can go back and forth for quite a while. How are you? How’s work? How are things at home? Each time, the person being asked responds positively, even if they’re not feeling that great. Nzuri! Fine! As an American, I’m programmed to get past the small talk as soon as possible and move right into the crux of the conversation, but here things are much different. Small talk is valued and seen as an integral part of the conversation. Many conversations I have here are nothing but an exchange of greetings, yet they carry a lot of weight. I’ve even thrown in some acceptable slangy responses that I’ve learned along the way, and these have garnered both smiles and surprised looks from the locals.

Website redesigned

Although you will notice only a few changes on the website, the engine that drives it has been revamped to make updating it much easier and work faster. We decided at the last parish council meeting to improve communications and our parish web presence is part of that project. A few items are left to be updated but if you visit it you should see some improvements. Be sure to take a look.

Fr. Hans on Ancient Faith Radio

Fr. Peter-Michael Preble interviewed me on the Ground Zero mosque issue recently on his radio program “Shepherd of Souls.”
You can hear the interview on the St. Peter website.

This Wednesday I am a guest of Kevin Allen’s “The Illumined Heart” on Ancient Faith Radio in a discussion with a Muslim convert to Orthodox Christianity about the role of religion in American society. This discussion will be released in a few weeks and I will post it on the website when it becomes available.

On November 16 I will be in Maryland at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) to debate an atheist. Fortunately my side got to pick the title. We chose “Can you be fully human without God?” My debating opponent is the son of a Baptist preacher. Should be interesting. More details as this develops.

Feeling Confident

Over the last few months I have a growing confidence about the viability and success of St. Peter Mission. We have a core of very solid and committed members. We have a dynamic Parish Council committed to the success of St. Peter’s. Most encouraging I think is the new people we see attending the Mission. No one comes to Church by accident — not even the regular members. God brings us and when we see new people coming we can take assurance He is blessing our efforts. The people he brings us are, in fact, the blessing.

I’ve been talking to people who have experience in starting missions. Did you know that we are doing very good? In fact, in some ways we are ahead of the curve. I find this very encouraging.

We will keep working and praying. Something very good happens every Sunday. I think this is what keeps each one of us coming back. As we grow into a Church, the Lord will bring people to us who are seeking Him too. In many ways, if we understand this correctly, this is a great privilege that has been handed to us.

May God bless you.

Fr. Hans

Listen here:

Fr. Peter blogs at Shepherd of Souls, and Fr. Peter-Michael Preble. He hosts the Shepherd of Souls podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Listen here:

Tim Flinders will graduate from Grand Valley State University next month. Raised Lutheran, he also explored fundamentalist Baptism, Roman Catholicism and even Messianic Judaism before converting to Orthodox Christianity this year.

“Orthodoxy has completely transformed me already,” he said. “I feel like the first time in my life I’m growing spiritually.”

Flinders, 22, like many other young people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, was looking for authenticity and historical accuracy in his Christian faith.

“I had so many different questions that needed to be answered,”

said Flinders, who added he wrestled with the many divisions of the Christian church over the years.

He was chrismated Holy Saturday at St. George Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids. Chrismation is akin to confirmation.

Recently he attended the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference at Hope College.

The Rev. Deacon Nicholas Belcher, dean of students at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, gave the opening keynote address, using the themes of holy week to introduce Orthodoxy to the more than 50 who attended.

Eastern Orthodox Easter, Pascha in Greek, fell on the same day as Western Easter this year.

Belcher described the nailing of Jesus to the cross as

“one of the most cruel things human beings have ever thought of to do to other human beings.”

Eastern Orthodox Christians, he explained, experience the crucifixion and resurrection in the now during liturgy.

“There is no sense that we are just talking about something that happened a long time ago. It is today,” he said.

Dustin Miller, a Hope senior, attended the conference for extra credit in his history of Christianity class, but said,

“I’ve always been curious about Orthodoxy.”

He, too, said he was looking for the apostolic, historical roots of the Christian church. Miller considers himself non-denominational and said he didn’t know the Hope campus had Orthodox students.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out, trying to find what best fits me,” Miller said.

The Orthodox Christian Fellowship campus club, which sponsored this month’s conference, meets Thursday nights for Small Compline (a short Psalm and evening prayer service). Then the handful of Orthodox students, one seminary student and Fr. Steven VanBronkhorst discuss topics such as biblical foundations for Orthodox worship.

He would like to see more inquirers at the OCF meetings and more students at the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference.

VanBronkhorst was a Reformed Church of America minister for almost two decades before coming to the Orthodox church 14 years ago. Still, VanBronkhorst said, he sees many more today looking for the historical church than when he was doing his own searching.

“I always felt that ideally there should be just one church,” he said. “The Orthodox church is by far the most historically faithful body. … Who is going to deny that the greater part of the evangelical world has the faith? They have faith. What they don’t have is the worship.”

Tyler Dykstra of Holland was chrismated this month.

He grew up Christian Reformed, but says he “wanted more.”

“Over time I started to realize there was so much history I had not known about even though I had gone to Christian schools all my life,” Dykstra, 24, said.

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St. Paul’s is serving a Vesperal-Liturgy for the feast of the Holy Transfiguration on Thursday, August 5 starting at 6:30pm (get directions).

The Holy Transfiguration is recorded in Matthew 17 and tells of Christ showing forth his glory to the disciples, thereby revealing to them that he was indeed the Son of God. You can read more about the Transfiguration of Christ here.

How should we prepare? A very light lunch with no food in the afternoon is appropriate would be minimal preparation. If you want to observe a stricter fast, eat nothing after breakfast.

The newly formed Parish Council began monthly meetings several months ago. We are making progress towards establishing our mission. Times are tight (for all of us) but we are managing to make it through. We will have a full report from the Council shortly on our progress. Presidents (we have a co-presidency) are: Jack Long and John Hansen, Secretary is Mary Copeland, Treasurer is Mary Jarvis. At large members include Anatole Kurdsjuk and Chris Spina.

After Liturgy several weeks ago we had a lively discussion about Christianity and Islam, focusing on the mosque that may be built at Ground Zero. Since then the discussion is playing out nationally. As some of you know, I am a columnist for Catholic Online and wrote an editorial on the subject. You can read it on the Catholic Online website. The article is one of the most discussed articles on the site.

People ask me why I write for a Catholic site. I write there because there is much in common between the Orthodox and Catholics, especially how we view living in Christ, and our responsibility towards the larger culture. An article published there several months ago explains this in more detail.

We have a lot in common with conservative Protestants too. A good rule of thumb I think is this: We are more united in the honest expression of our differences, than in pretending that they don’t exist.

This Sunday we will hold the Forty Day Memorial for our beloved sister in Christ Nancy Zabitt. Cleo and Stan Ventos will not be able to be able to attend (they are still in Wisconsin and will also hold a memorial there) but have expressed their gratitude to us for our prayers. Thank you to Angela Long who will make the kolyva.

I was informed this morning that Nancy Forderhase, our parishioner from Kentucky, was in a car accident. She told me she would be fine and we would see her this Sunday. The accident was very serious but we thank God that Nancy and her sister will make a full recovery. Please keep her in your prayers. The event was traumatic, it could have been a whole lot worse than it was, and we are grateful she and her sister will be fine.

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May God’s grace and mercy be yours always.

Fr. Hans