News
Getting “Lost” during the Great Fast
Atacama Desert in Chile. Image credit: S. Brunier of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). URL: https://www.eso.org/public/images/armazonesparanal/.
Sustaining our commitments to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving through the entire Great Fast is a daunting task. It is easy to start strong, but much more difficult to remain consistent to the end. Often times we find ourselves “lost” in a spiritual desert several weeks into the Lenten Journey when our initial enthusiasm has waned and Easter Sunday feels like an eternity away.
It can be helpful during these times to narrow our focus, such as on fasting alone. In Saint Basil’s First Homily on Fasting, he reflects on the idea that fasting goes back to our first parents when God instructed Adam and Eve to refrain from eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17). He continues by noting that their failure to fast in this instance resulted in humanity’s loss of paradise. Therefore, he argues, we today should embrace fasting because the spiritual benefits will allow us to reenter it to live with Christ forever.
The Sisters visiting from Ukraine spent time with Archbishop Borys Gudziak at the Chancery of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia.
The three Sisters from Holy Trinity Province in Ukraine continued their domestic travels last weekend with successful stops at Saint John the Baptist in Newark, NJ and Saint George in New York City.
This weekend, Mother Sevastiana Karvatska, OSBM, Provincial Superior; Sister Inokentiia Brattsiv, OSBM, Second Provincial Councilor and Econome; and Sister Lucia Murashko, OSBM, Superior of the Zaporizhzhia Monastery, will head to Chicago to visit four additional parishes, including one in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.
Travel Itinerary for Sunday, March 22
Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Chicago
Saint Joseph the Betrothed Church in Chicago
Saints Volodymyr and Ohla Church in Chicago
Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, IL (Roman Catholic)