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Prayers for Peace
On Thursday, March 24th, an Adoration, Prayer, and Rosary Service was held at St. Timothy R.C. Church where prayers were offered for peace and an end to the war in Ukraine.
Rev. Mykola Drofych, pastor of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church on Elmwood Avenue, joined with Fr. Dennis Fronckowiak and Fr. Patryk Sobczyk.
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A Prayer for Peace in Ukraine
Join us in offering petition to God for our brothers and sisters under siege and seeking refuge.
Heavenly Father, Your Son taught us “Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God.”In this time of great worry, we fervently pray that Your Holy Spirit sustain all the people of Ukraine to be vigilant and dedicated to peace and justice. Grant their leaders wisdom and prudence. Yet, may they also have the strength and perseverance to defend their land from all adversity and foreign attacks. Help us all to live according to your Divine Will.
O God, our Father, in the days to come, we beseech you to comfort the suffering, heal the wounded, and accept the souls of the faithful departed into Your Heavenly Kingdom. We ask also that the Most Holy Mother of God extend her blessed mantle of protection over our Ukraine.
Amen.
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Know what's at stake in Ukraine
By Gina Christian, Courtesy PhillyCatholic.com
On a Sunday afternoon back in mid-January, I sat down at my laptop, waiting for a call from Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the metropolitan of Ukrainian Catholics in the United States. At the time, tens of thousands of Russian troops were amassed along the Ukraine border, and my editor and I wanted to hear from Ukrainian Catholics about the matter. Amid an extremely busy pastoral schedule, Archbishop Gudziak graciously agreed to speak to me.
I don’t think I will ever forget that conversation.
After we exchanged greetings, the archbishop gently pressed past my rather naive interview questions and, in a voice of calm conviction, uttered words that have proven to be prophetic.
While Americans speculated Russian president Vladimir Putin was simply saber-rattling to keep Western leaders off balance, Archbishop Gudziak was direct, stating that the buildup posed “a question of life or death for thousands, who (would) be massacred by an escalated invasion,” with “between three and six million refugees (flooding) into Western Europe.”
And the bloodshed wouldn’t be confined to Ukraine, he said.
“If Russia succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, chances are the process will continue in the Baltic countries, Central Europe and beyond,” said Archbishop Gudziak.
Ukrainians know that likelihood all too well, he said.
For them, “the reality of war … is not a new story,” said Archbishop Gudziak. “Our priests (there) have been burying war dead regularly for over eight years.”
In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, with Russian-backed separatists proclaiming “people’s republics” in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. That move came just 23 years after Ukraine gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, of which it had been a part.
Between 2014 and this latest Russian invasion, clashes, shelling and sniper attacks became common in eastern Ukraine, resulting in an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 deaths and some 1.5 million internally displaced persons.
Ukraine was already well acquainted with such suffering. While subjugated to the Soviet Union, its dead were numbered among the 50 to 60 million slain through “wars, purges, genocides and ideological repression,” said Archbishop Gudziak.
From 1932 to 1933, at least four million Ukrainians (about 13% of the population) died in the Holodomor, a famine deliberately created by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin through farm collectivization to “break the back of the Ukrainian peasantry,” the archbishop said.
In addition, the Orthodox Church — which under communism maintained “some form of existence” — was persecuted, while “the Roman Catholic Church was almost completely annihilated, along with many Protestant communities” in Ukraine, said Archbishop Gudziak. “The Ukrainian Catholic Church became the biggest illegal church in the world from 1946 to 1989.”
And it may become that again.
On Feb. 24, just a month after my interview, Russian troops invaded Ukraine in force. Archbishop Gudziak again spoke with me, this time from Paris, where he was holding emergency meetings with diplomats.
“Ukraine is being crucified,” he said – and, as with Christ, it had first been betrayed.
In 1994, Ukraine voluntarily forfeited its nuclear arsenal – the third largest in the world at the time — as part of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, through which the U.S., Russia and Britain pledged “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders or Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against Ukraine.
Now, said Archbishop Gudziak, “one of the signatories (Russia) is the violator of it.”
For years, Ukrainian officials had warned their counterparts about the ongoing aims and assaults of Russia. In return, insufficient sanctions from the West left Russia with “its hand slapped and not much more,” said the archbishop.
Our “attachment to comfort,” along with our “loss of understanding of human nature and the deep consequences of sin,” had enabled us to “stand by and watch what was occurring in Ukraine over the past eight years,” he said.
Indeed, ensnared by sensuality, consumerism, greed, ideology, polarization and countless other sins, we face an overdue “examination of conscience,” he said. “How did (the West) stand by and watch what was occurring in Ukraine over the past eight years?”
As I write this, thousands – including pregnant women, infants and children – have been killed and maimed by Russian weapons, which are deliberately targeting not only critical infrastructure and nuclear power plants, but schools, maternity hospitals, residential areas, churches, civilian bomb shelters and humanitarian corridors.
Close to four million refugees have fled to neighboring European Union nations. Almost seven million remain displaced within Ukraine; another 12 million are sheltering in place needing humanitarian help.
Several thousand Ukrainians from the besieged yet unvanquished city of Mariupol have, according to Ukrainian authorities, been deported to Russia – whose leader, Vladimir Putin, has over two decades evolved from, as The New York Times recently observed, “statesman to dictator.”
Archbishop Gudziak, along with every Ukrainian and Ukrainian-American I’ve interviewed, knows exactly what is at stake in this war – historically, morally and spiritually.
Do we?
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the worldwide Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, proposes an answer in his daily video message of March 19, the 24th day of the war: “Do not close your hearts before the pain of Ukraine, for one day the Lord God will tell you, ‘I was wounded in Ukraine, and you turned your face away from me.'”
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How to help our Brothers and Sisters in Need in Ukraine
Catholics throughout the world are aiding the people of Ukraine through charity and prayer amid the ongoing onslaught from the country’s invasion by Russia.Among the Catholic agencies assisting in the cause and accepting contributions are:
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) carries out the commitment of the bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas.
crs.org. Or Caritas Ukraine, caritas.org.
Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), an agency of the Holy See, works for, through and with the Eastern churches. It was founded by Pope Pius XI in 1926.
Aid to the Church in Need is a pontifical foundation of the Catholic Church, supporting the Catholic faithful and other Christians where they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.
Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization established in 1882 by Blessed Michael McGivney and a group of parishioners in New Haven, Conn., to meet the needs of immigrants, refugees and families suffering from the death of a breadwinner.
Salesian Missions, headquartered in New Rochelle, is the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco.
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Now It's Time to Do Our Part in the Conversion of Russia
By Patti Maguire Armstrong, Courtesy National Catholic Register
Sister Lúcia said Our Lady asked for observance of the Five First Saturdays devotion, and especially desired ‘the sanctification of our daily life.’
Pope Francis, in union with all the bishops, consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25th. The impulse comes from Our Lady of Fatima’s messages. Everyone should know about the story of Fatima, one of the Church-approved apparitions.
In an interview, Deacon Bob Ellis, National Coordinator for the World Apostolate of Fatima, USA, pointed out that the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was only part of what Our Blessed Mother said was necessary for the conversion of Russia and for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. He explained that during the Fatima apparitions in 1917 to three shepherd children, “The Blessed Virgin Mary revealed that World War I would end, and predicted another war during the papacy of Pius XI if people continued to offend God. She promised to come and ask the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.”
Our Lady returned multiple times to visit Sister Lúcia (1907-2005), the only surviving visionary, in her Discalced Carmelite convent. In 1925, she gave Lúcia the Five First Saturdays devotion, promising to all who make them to supply all the graces they needed at the time of their death. “It’s misunderstood by many people,” Ellis said. “You are not just to do them for one series of five, but for the reminder of your life. Every time you complete a series of five, you merit that grace for another soul.”
The Blessed Mother then returned June 13, 1929, telling Lúcia that the time was now for Russia to be consecrated to prevent the spreading its errors of atheism and communism. The consecration was to be done by the Pope in union with the bishops throughout the world.
Attempts in 1942, 1952 and 1964 were not accepted as following the instructions correctly, but according to Lúcia, the 1984 consecration by St. John Paul II satisfied the request. On March 25, 1984, in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope John Paul II consecrated the whole world in front of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, inviting all other bishops to join him in prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. According to the Vatican, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Sister Lúcia confirmed that it satisfied Our Lady’s request.
Skeptics say that the Pope did not explicitly say “Russia” in his public prayer, so it did not count. “But by the time it was attempted ‘now’ has passed and Russia had spread its errors throughout the world,” Ellis said. But why, then, has Russia not been converted and it continues to spread its errors? Ellis responded: “People are neglecting that Our Lady asked for two things to secure the conversion of Russia and peace in the world: the consecration of Russia and the First Saturdays devotion.”
He also shared that when John Haffert, one of the founders of the Blue Army (now named the World Apostolate of Fatima, USA), met with Sister Lúcia, he asked: “The Rosary is the most important thing, right?”
“No,” she told him. “The sanctification of our daily life is.” Ellis explained this means offering up our daily duties with all its aches, pains, trials and tribulations. “So, if you bang your head, say, ‘O Jesus, I offer this up to you.’” He said we should pray a daily Rosary and also make a morning offering, thereby tagging all we do that day for Jesus. Ellis recommended this prayer:O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer you my prayers, works, joys, and suffering of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.
I offer them for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart: the salvation of souls, reparation for sins, the reunion of all Christians;
I offer them for the intentions of our Bishops and of all Apostles of Prayer and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month.
What so many people are neglecting, according to him, is that although the consecration is vital, we have a part in the conversion of Russia and of the world. As confirmation, however, of the power of the 1984 consecration, Ellis shared this story.
The March 25, 1984, world Consecration to Mary’s Immaculate Heart led to what happened on May 13, 1984, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. An unexplained fire broke out at the Severomorsk Naval Base in Russia which killed between 200-300 nuclear scientists and technicians, thereby ending Russia’s nuclear dominance. Sister Lúcia said in her diary that if the 1984 Consecration hadn’t been done, 1985 would have seen a Third World War and it would have been nuclear.
While we put great hope in today’s consecration, Ellis asked for Catholics to respond to also do our part as requested by Our Lady.
The First Five Saturdays
The Blessed Mother explained the Five First Saturdays to Lúcia on Dec. 10, 1925:See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Tell them that I promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First Saturday of five successive months, go to Confession, receive Holy Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour, meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary.
In a 1930 locution from Jesus to Sister Lúcia, he explained that the Five Saturdays’ devotion is in response to the five kinds of offenses and blasphemies spoken against the Immaculate Heart of Mary:- First, blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception;
- Second, against her perpetual virginity;
- Third, against the Divine Maternity, refusing, at the same time, to receive her as the Mother of mankind;
- Fourth, those who seek publicly to implant, in the hearts of children, indifference, disrespect and even hatred for this Immaculate Mother;
- Fifth, those who revile her directly in her sacred images.
Jesus told Lúcia:Here, dear daughter, is the motive that led the Immaculate Heart of Mary to petition me to ask for this small act of reparation. And, out of regard for her, to move my mercy to pardon those souls who have had the misfortune to offend her. As for you, seek endlessly, with your prayers and sacrifices, to move me to mercy in regard to these poor souls.
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