When the Homily is about Immunology

Holy Wisdom

The Greek word Hagia, which we translate as "saint" is literally "Holy."

Tomorrow, September 17th, is my wife's nameday. To her I offer a heartfelt Many Years! I am extrememly grateful to God for my wife and for the wonderful spirit she posesses. She ranks me in so many ways, that I haven't the room here to list them all. But, I will offer this much...Sophia, meaning wisdom is so befitting for indeed she maintains a Holy Wisdom which all too often sees right through me.

Susan was slower to accept the Orthodox faith than I, but in time she came to truly love that which she had once counted as too foreign. As we were enlisted into the catechumenate, it became neccesary for us to seek a patron saint and upon reading the story of Saint Sophia and her three daughters, Susan was moved to embrace this wonderful mother-martyr.

During the very early persecutions of the emperor Adrian, Sophia and her three daughters: Faith (12), Hope (10), and Love (9), were all horribly tortured because they all refused to offer sacrifice to the pagan goddess Artemis. Holy Sophia was forced to watch as they tormented her daughters:

from the OCA website:
Then the emperor gave orders to fiercely torture them: they burned at the holy virgins over an iron grating, they threw them into a red-hot oven and then into a cauldron with boiling tar, but the Lord by His Unseen Power preserved them. The youngest one, Love, they tied to a wheel and beat at her with canes, until her body was covered all over with bloody welts. And undergoing unreported torments, the holy virgins glorified their Heavenly Bridegroom and remained steadfast in the faith. They subjected Saint Sophia to another and grievous torture: the mother was forced to look upon the suffering of her daughters. But she displayed adamant courage and during this whole while she urged the girls to endure the torments in the Name of the Heavenly Bridegroom. All three maidens with joy met their martyr's end. They were beheaded.

In order to intensify the inner suffering of Saint Sophia, the emperor decided to let her take up the bodies of her daughters. She placed their remains in coffins and reverently conveyed them on a wagon beyond the city and buried them on an high place. Saint Sophia sat there for three days not leaving the graves of her daughters, and finally she gave up her soul to the Lord. Believers buried her body there also.

It's no wonder American Christianity is so screwed up - we have too much luxury and too much free time. As I have said before, we have no idea what suffering for Christ is and yet I believe our religious selves are withering away. There is no need for persecution here....satan has given us a worse enemy: wealth and leisure time.

I believe it was Fr. Hopko who I heard once say in regards to the religious life of Russians (my lame paraphrase): "What the athiestic death camps of the communists failed to do, McDonalds and video games may yet accomplish."

And here I sit, lazily, amidst my luxuries.

O Holy Saint Sophia...please pray unto God for us!

Faith, Hope and Love, holy branches of noble Sophia,
by grace made Greek wisdom foolishness.
They have contested and won the Victory
and have been crowned by Christ the Master of all.