Bishop-Martyr Nykolai (Nicholas) Charnetsky and the Twenty-Seven Other New Blesseds of the Church of Rus’-Ukraine Beatified in 2001; Our Venerable Father Samson, Host of Strangers (527-65); (Because the following two blesseds passed into eternal life at the end of June (1941) (the exact date is not recorded) we commemorate them by name on this day: the Basilian priest-monk Severian (Baranyk), martyr of Drohobych; and the Redemptorist priest-monk Zynoviy (Zenobius) (Kovalyk), martyr of Lviv (Zamarstyniv prison))
Apostles’ Fast. A day when the faithful are highly encouraged to participate in the Divine Liturgy.
Ephesians 6:10-17; Luke 21:12-19.
Read Luke 21:12-19
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Today’s gospel describes how the disciples of Jesus will be persecuted both by civil authorities and by those “in the synagogues.” For the early Christians, who were mostly Jews, this meant persecution by their fellow Jews. Jesus then says that his disciples will be handed over not only by their enemies, but even by their friends and relatives. This is a scary thought!
When I was younger, I had a romantic notion of martyrdom, probably influenced by stories of resistance fighters during WWII. Because I was a child, I read children’s history books, which largely gloss over the danger of resisting a regime like the Nazis. I so admired the courage that it took to resist these invaders that I didn’t really stop to think what such courage might cost.
For the New Martyrs of Ukraine, the courage to stay faithful to Christ and the Catholic Church wasn’t just a decision to reject a godless regime that had invaded their country. It wasn’t directed only against enemies. It was a decision to reject a false union with their fellow Christians. After all, the persecution of the Ukrainian Catholic Church by the Soviet regime was based on the refusal of its readers to join the Orthodox Church. A decision to remain faithful to the Catholic Church meant a kind of rupture with one’s fellow Christians. This is a bittersweet fact, since many Ukrainian Catholics at the time deeply desired the reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. But the new martyrs made a choice for authentic union, not based on lies and persecution, not based on a kind of artificial friendship, but on freedom and mutual respect. This meant that they experienced a type of betrayal by their fellow Christians, “their friends and relatives”. Yet in this way, they stayed faithful to Christ., paving the way for a more authentic union.