Happy New Year AM 7534!!! Срећна Нова Година СГ 7534!!!

Happy New Year's Day, A.M. 7534!!!

No, I haven't gone mad. In the Byzantine Calendar, used liturgically in the Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite and the Eastern Orthodox (except for the Old Calendarists), today is the anniversary of the Creation 7534 years ago.

Whilst the West uses AD, anno Domini, In the Year of Our Lord, the East uses AM, anno mundi, In the Year of the World.

The Byzantine Catholic Troparion and Kontakion for the New Year:

Troparion — Tone 2

O Creator of the universe, / Thou didst appoint times by Thy power; / bless the crown of this year with Thy goodness, O Lord. / Preserve in safety Thy rulers and cities: / and through the intercessions of the Theotokos, save us!

Kontakion — Tone 4

O Creator and Master of time and the ages, / Triune and Merciful God of all: / grant blessings for the course of this year, / and in Thy boundless mercy save those who worship Thee and cry out in fear: / “O Saviour, grant blessings to all mankind!”

Let the festivities begin!

The Latent Schismatic Mentality Contained in Article 1 of "Traditionis Custodes"

An analysis of Article 1 of Traditionis Custodes, in which Francis says that the NO is the "unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite".

From Rorate Cæli

By Simon de Cyrène

Lex Orandi and Ecclesial Rupture: A Brief Theological and Canonical Critique of Article 1 of Traditionis Custodes

(by Simon de Cyrène at the Croce-Via blog; translated for Rorate Caeli)

Summary: This short article critically analyzes Article 1 of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes (2021), which states that the liturgical books reformed by Paul VI and John Paul II constitute “the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”

This statement, if interpreted as exclusive and binding, implies an objective break with the organic liturgical Tradition of the Church, contradicts previous magisterium, and introduces a theologically unstable principle: the obsolescence of previous liturgical forms that have expressed the Catholic faith for centuries. This essay shows how this position can generate a form of latent schism, not on the part of those who preserve the traditional liturgy, but on the part of those who deny its ecclesial and theological legitimacy.

1. Introduction: unprecedented and destabilizing

Article 1 of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, promulgated by Pope Francis on July 16, 2021, introduces a principle never before expressed in such absolute terms in the recent history of the magisterium:

“The liturgical books promulgated by the Holy Fathers Paul VI and John Paul II [...] are the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”

This statement does not merely regulate the use of the Missal of St. Pius V (1962 edition), but implicitly excludes it from the very definition of the official prayer of the Latin Church. This raises an essential question: can a new liturgical reform, however authoritative, declare itself the sole bearer of the lex orandi, relegating the previous one to an outdated, tolerated, or theologically surpassed expression? And if so, what are the doctrinal, canonical, and communal implications of such an exclusion?

2. The lex orandi as a binding theological principle

Already in the patristic centuries, the lex orandi was recognized as the normative expression of the lex credendi. Prosper of Aquitaine summarized it as follows: ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi—the law of prayer establishes the law of faith. This is not a devotional formula, but a dogmatic principle: liturgy is not an ornament of faith, but its manifestation and vehicle.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in no. 1124: “The faith of the Church precedes the faith of the believer, who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the Apostles.”

The liturgy is therefore part of the Apostolic Tradition: every form of it that is approved, transmitted, and lived in the Church constitutes not only a ritual modality but a theological locus. To eliminate a venerable form such as the Tridentine rite, denying it the dignity of the current lex orandi, means undermining the organic nature of Tradition.

3. The previous magisterium: organic development, not replacement

The principle of the “organic development” of the liturgy has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the recent magisterium.

3.1 Pius XII – Mediator Dei (1947): “The liturgy cannot be considered either as a museum to be preserved or as a laboratory for experimentation. It grows like a tree from the root of the apostolic faith.”

3.2 John XXIII – Rubricarum Instructum (1960): “We confirm and order that what Tradition has received and handed down with veneration be kept intact.”

3.3 Benedict XVI – Letter Accompanying Summorum Pontificum (2007): “What was sacred for previous generations remains sacred and great for us too, and cannot suddenly be forbidden or judged harmful.”

All previous reforms, up to that of John XXIII, are justified not by a break but by continuity: what is adapted, simplified, or restored always remains within the development of Tradition. No Pope has ever claimed that the reform abolished the theological validity of the previous form.

4. Systemic contradiction: if today it is no longer the lex orandi, yesterday it never was

If it is claimed that the Tridentine Mass is no longer an expression of the lex orandi today, one is forced to conclude:

- either that the Church has for centuries expressed a liturgically deficient or unsuitable faith;

- or that faith can be expressed in mutually exclusive forms;

- or that the current criterion prevails over the one handed down, transforming the Tradition into a contingent decision. As Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “In liturgy, what was true before cannot become false afterwards.” (Ratzinger Report, 1985)

- The risk, then, is that of introducing a hermeneutic of rupture, in which the faith of the Church is no longer the organic guardian of the deposit received, but an authoritative reformulation according to the pastoral criteria of the moment.

5. Risk of liturgical schism: diachronic, not synchronic

Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law defines schism as “refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” However, one can also hypothesize a form of diachronic liturgical schism, that is, a break between the Church of today and the Church of yesterday, if one denies that what was lex orandi for centuries can still be so.

In this case, it is not those who celebrate according to Tradition who place themselves outside communion, but those who deny that Tradition is still alive and legitimate. As Alcuin Reid wrote: “A Church that contradicts itself in worship contradicts itself in its identity” (The Organic Development of the Liturgy, 2004). And Benedict XVI: “Liturgical divisions often precede doctrinal ones, because the lex orandi precedes the lex credendi.”

Denying the liturgical legitimacy of the 1962 Missal, without formally declaring it heretical or invalid, produces a silent but profound fracture.

6. Canonical and theological consequences of Article 1

6.1 Papal authority and its limits

The Pope enjoys full authority in liturgical matters (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22), but not in an arbitrary manner. The First Vatican Council (Pastor Aeternus) states:“The Holy Spirit was not promised to Peter’s successors so that they might manifest a new doctrine, but so that they might sacredly guard and faithfully explain the Revelation handed down.”

6.2 Validity, lawfulness, and marginalization of the ancient rite

The 1962 Missal is valid, orthodox, and has never been formally abrogated. Article 1 of Traditionis Custodes does not declare it invalid or heretical, but it does deprive it of normative relevance. This generates a form of ecclesial suspension: what is valid is no longer an expression of communion.

6.3 Visible unity and ritual plurality

The unity of the Church is not achieved through liturgical uniformity, but through communion in truth. The coexistence of different rites (e.g., Eastern Catholic, Ambrosian, Dominican, etc.) has never affected ecclesial unity. Why then deny this plurality within the Roman Rite?

7. Historical precedents and ecclesial warnings

The Monophysites also separated because of liturgical disputes. The East-West Schism was fostered by innovations in the Latin Creed and worship (e.g., Filioque). History teaches that radical liturgical changes, not anchored in Tradition, can generate lasting fractures. In the current case, the declaration in Article 1, if taken as absolute, establishes a fracture between the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar lex orandi, creating a hiatus in continuity that no authority can legitimize without contradicting its own identity.

8. Conclusion: restoring communion in the living Tradition

Article 1 of Traditionis Custodes, as it is formulated, introduces an ecclesiological and liturgical distortion that risks undermining confidence in the stability of the faith celebrated. Liturgical reform cannot become the exclusive criterion of catholicity. True reform does not eliminate but integrates. It does not declare previous forms obsolete, but interprets them in the light of the one Mystery.

Resistance to this logic of exclusion is not disobedience, but the exercise of the sensus fidei fidelium. It asks us not to deny what has formed the holiness, doctrine, and culture of the Church for centuries. It is a fidelity that does not oppose the Pope, but calls him back to the sacred bond of the Apostolic Tradition.

Objection 1: Article 1 does not deny the value of the ancient rite, but establishes a unified norm for pastoral needs.

Response: Even though it is formulated as a disciplinary act, Article 1 has theological implications because it declares that only one form (the Novus Ordo) is the sole expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite. The lex orandi, being an expression of the lex credendi, is not a functional tool of pastoral care, but a theological locus. Replacing it inevitably implies that the previous form no longer adequately expresses the faith of the Church. This goes beyond the scope of a simple disciplinary norm and slips into an implicit doctrinal contradiction.

Objection 2: The statement in Article 1 should be read in the context of post-conciliar unity, not as a break.

Response: The unity of the Church is not achieved through uniformity, but through communion in truth. The Roman Rite has experienced internal plurality for centuries (Dominican, Ambrosian, Carthusian rites, etc.), without this undermining ecclesial unity. If Article 1 imposes absolute liturgical exclusivity, it interrupts the organic nature of Tradition, replacing a principle of received fidelity with a vision of “unity by decree.” The hermeneutic of reform cannot disregard the hermeneutic of continuity.

Objection 3: The Pope has full authority to determine the ritual form of the Church.

Response: Yes, but his authority is vicarious and not absolute. As taught by Vatican I (Pastor Aeternus), the Pope does not receive the Holy Spirit to reveal new doctrines, but to faithfully guard and explain Revelation. Even the liturgical authority of the Pontiff is subordinate to received Tradition: he can regulate but may not arbitrarily abolish forms approved and sanctified by centuries of use and the lives of the saints.

Objection 4: Article 1 is only a disciplinary measure, without doctrinal value.

Response: This distinction does not hold in the case of the liturgy. Since the lex orandi is a theological locus, any normative exclusion has implicit doctrinal implications. If it is said that only the new rite expresses the faith of the Church today, it is implicitly declared that the previous rite no longer expresses it: but this implies a judgment of content, not just of practice. Catholic theology cannot accept that an orthodox rite, approved for centuries, should now be downgraded as theologically inadequate, without breaking with Tradition.

Nobody Puts Bébé in the Corner

"Anyone who advocates for criminalising the punishing of four-year-olds cannot be surprised when they grow up to disregard the rule of law."

From The European Conservative

By Lauren Smith

France’s ban on disciplining toddlers equates time-outs to traumatic abuse. No wonder French youth are running riot.

More than 700 educational experts, psychologists, and doctors have signed a letter slamming the French government’s decision to ban punishment in nursery schools and daycares. Last month, new guidelines were released that warn against punitive methods to control the behaviour of naughty children, like isolation and time-outs. It instead advocates for “positive parenting,” recommending that childcare providers allow children to shout, cry, throw objects, and play with their food in order to express their emotions. At that age, the document argues, punishing children is basically a useless exercise, and educators should consider it impossible to shape behaviour through discipline. 

Pedagogues who ignore this guidance could end up falling afoul of the law. The rules build on a law passed in 2019, which forbids adults from carrying out “ordinary educational violence” against children. This includes, as you might expect, corporal punishment like spanking and hitting, as well as “psychological humiliation.” This is supposed to prevent teachers and other childcare workers from being abusive, but the definition of what exactly counts as “psychological humiliation” is becoming ever broader. According to the families ministry, putting kids in time-out is “equivalent to psychological violence. You can’t calm children down by putting them in a corner.” 

The 700 experts who signed this open letter disagree—you very much can calm children down by putting them in a corner. They don’t put much stock in the government’s suggestion that the best way to restore order in a classroom or playroom is to reason with a wailing toddler. Of course, no one is advocating for daycare workers to bring out the cane for misbehaving children. But, realistically, there is only so far you can go in allowing a child to express his emotions before it becomes problematic for the other children. Removing a screaming child from the classroom to calm down is not the same as locking a child alone in a room for hours on end. Nor is giving a kid a stern talking to the same as beating him. 

This approach is also unhelpful to the naughty child. As the open letter argues, it “encourages children to give in to their impulses” and teaches them that being disruptive is acceptable and tolerated. It goes on, “The worrying thing is that this keeps the child in a state of infancy, as if carers should confine themselves to accommodating the child’s needs.” Far from helping them to process and self-regulate their emotions, it teaches them that their feelings, whims, and tantrums should be the No.1 priority of all adults around them. Branding any kind of discipline and punishment as traumatic abuse is a recipe for creating entitled, unruly children. 

This isn’t just a problem that teachers and other children will have to contend with. It also has an effect on wider society. It’s well-established that the children with the most behavioural issues tend to be the same children who come from broken homes and precarious socio-economic backgrounds. For many of these kids with absent or neglectful parents, nursery and school will be the only places they come into contact with discipline. It is especially important to reinforce the idea that breaking the rules will lead to punishment at a young age—otherwise we risk setting children up to go through life believing that their actions don’t have consequences. 

At the most extreme end of this, we see France’s problem with youth gangs. In Greater Paris, police logged 440 rixes entre bandes (gang fights) in 2024, up from 413 in 2023, with six deaths. In Paris proper, there were 17 rixes, leaving 63 injured and two dead. The overwhelming majority of these violent clashes are between teenagers. Multiple towns and cities have implemented curfews over the summer holidays in an attempt to stop wayward teens from wreaking havoc after dark. Obviously, these are not toddlers who are roaming the streets, committing arson, and dealing drugs. And there is no straight line from crèche to crime. But the unruly youths who terrorise towns like Limoges or Nîmes do not come from nowhere. Official stats also show that minors (13–17) are over-represented among suspects for violent theft without a weapon (35%), armed theft (31%), and vehicle theft (28%)—the kinds of offences where impulse control and predictable consequences matter.

The majority of youth gangs proliferate in areas that are socially deprived and immigrant heavy. In Seine-Saint-Denis, a hotspot of gang violence, roughly 31% of residents are immigrants. Plaine Commune—the intercommunal authority that includes Saint-Denis—has 69% of its population living in ‘high-priority,’ poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. 29% are single-parent families, and 41% are immigrants. Schools in this ecosystem are also integrating 88,500 newly arrived pupils who do not speak French. While we don’t have breakdowns of ethnicity or migrant background when it comes to youth gangs, these figures do show where the state is the first educator—and why predictable consequences in early-years settings matter most there. 

Anormal, stable household will be able to pick up the slack where teachers and daycare workers fail, setting proper boundaries and enforcing rules. But what about the child who does not have parents in the picture, or at least, parents who care? One of the very first lessons they will learn from the state is that they can do whatever they please and that the authorities will tolerate it. The majority of them, hopefully, will not turn out to be criminals. But the last thing any of these under-parented kids need is to have their ‘big feelings’ validated. 

None of this is to say that we can fix the issue of youth crime by banishing would-be gangsters to the naughty step. But it’s surely a start. How else are children supposed to learn social responsibility, impulse control, and basic rules and norms if they’re allowed to run wild from day one? Anyone who advocates for criminalising the punishing of four-year-olds cannot be surprised when they grow up to disregard the rule of law. A country that can’t control its toddlers certainly won’t be able to control its criminals. 

Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ September 1st

ON THE EIGHT BEATITUDES, ST. MATT. V.

Consider first, how the Son of God, the eternal wisdom of the father, being come down from heaven to be our father, our light, and our guide, in order to reclaim us from all our errors, to dispel our darkness, to redress all our evils, and to conduct us into the way of truth and everlasting happiness, opened his heavenly school for these purposes by his divine sermon upon the mount; in the beginning of which he has laid down in a few words the principal maxims of true wisdom and all the fundamentals of Christian morality comprised in what we commonly call the eight beatitudes. Christians, we all desire to be happy for ever; and behold here the wisdom of God, which can neither deceive nor be deceived, declares to us in clear and distinct terms what it is that is to make us happy here and to conduct us safe to a happiness that shall never end. O let us embrace, then, these blessed lessons! Who would not study them well since the learning of them is to make us wise indeed, and to bring us infallibly to the very source of all wisdom and happiness - even to an eternal union with God himself? O heavenly master, who would not frequent thy divine school since, in the very first entrance into it, thou thus directest us into a plain and easy way to eternal bliss?

Consider 2ndly, that the ancient philosophers, with all their pretensions to wisdom, were strangely in the dark with regard to man's true happiness, his last end, and his sovereign good, about which they ran into many errors; and not one of them all ever came near the truth. And, as they knew not the end, so were they also strangers to the true means that were to bring us to this end. They never once imagined that to be poor in spirit, to be meek, to morn, to suffer persecution, & c., was the way to happiness, much less did they suspect that such as these alone were actually happy. This was a doctrine never heard of in their schools. This was a lesson that was to be taught by the Son of God. This truth he brought down with him from heaven, and delivered to his disciples in his first divine sermon. O my soul, let us embrace with all our affections these divine truths, taught us by so great a master; let us be practically convinced of them, and conform ourselves to them in the whole conduct of our lives.

Consider 3rdly, how miserable are all the children of Babylon, that is, all poor deluded worldlings, who under the name of Christians, whilst they profess themselves followers and disciples of this divine master, take no notice of these lessons which he came from heaven to teach, but live on in an affected ignorance of them; so as to apprehend all those to be miserable whom he pronounces blessed, and those alone to be happy, who wallow in riches and sensual pleasures, whom he declares to be miserable, and against whom he pronounces his woe. And do such people as these believe the gospel indeed? whilst they pretend to seek for happiness in the very way which (if the gospel be true) must needs betray them into many errors, labours, and sorrows here, and shortly conduct them into endless misery. O let us at least be more wise! Let us open our eyes to this great light, which is come down from heaven, to shine upon them that before sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. Let us believe and adhere to this great teacher, who has the words of eternal life. Let us follow him and we shall not fail, under his conduct, to find the true way to solid happiness and eternal life.

Conclude to be ever thankful to the Son of God for all these great gospel truths which he has brought us down from heaven, in order to set loose our souls from the earth, and so to carry us up to heaven. O! if we desire to fly up to this happy region of pure and immortal joys, it must be with the wings of these virtues that are recommended to us in these eight beatitudes.

1 September, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day

The Problem of Evil

1. In his second letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul speaks of the Anti-Christ, “the man of sin… the son of perdition, who opposes and is exalted above all that is called God…” “Already,” he says, “the mystery of iniquity is at work.” (Cf. 2 Thess. 2:3-7) From the beginning of the Church’s history until the present time it has always been the same.

There always have been and always will be men who do evil not from human weakness, but from motives of malice so diabolical as to present something of a mystery to us. These can be called Anti-Christ because they seem to be incarnations of the devil, the spirit of iniquity. They delight in spreading error, in corrupting minds, and in persecuting the Church. They are steeped in all kinds of baseness and nothing pleases them better than to succeed in inducing the young and the innocent to follow them in their sinful ways. For this purpose they employ all the advantages which modern technical progress has to offer – the press, the cinema, the radio, and television. In short, they use God’s gifts in their commercialisation of sin in order to draw souls away from Him.

The realisation of this terrifying fact provokes two questions. (1) How can such evil be permitted by God, Who made man for Himself and redeemed him with the Blood of His only-begotten Son? (2) What steps can we take to control this alarming and universal deluge of evil?

2. St. Augustine answers the first question by pointing out that the infinite and good God created us without any assistance from ourselves, but does not will to save us without our cooperation since He has endowed us with the gift of liberty. Moreover, He prefers to draw good from evil rather than to prevent the evil itself. We must answer the second question ourselves, remembering that we have a serious obligation to combat evil in ourselves and in our fellow-men. What have we done up to now and what do we propose to do in the future?

3. According to St. Augustine, great good can come from the evil which God permits. In the first place, God displays His infinite goodness and mercy. Even though He permits us to offend Him out of respect for our human liberty, He is always ready to forgive us, even as He forgave the penitent thief. In the second place, by permitting evil God gives the good an opportunity of practicing virtue, especially the virtue of patience. If there were no persecutors, there would be no martyrs and the Church would be deprived of the glory which makes her most like her founder, Jesus Christ. Finally, each of us has a particular duty to fulfil in resisting the onslaught of evil. As followers and soldiers of Christ, we cannot remain passive. The invasion by the forces of evil demands a counter-attack by the forces of good in defense of the faith and of the Church. As Christians, we are the sons of martyrs. We must not refuse, therefore, to make our lives a continuous martyrdom for the triumph of goodness in ourselves and in others. The faithful exercise of virtue and of the apostolate is often a form of martyrdom.

Byzantine Saints: Saint Simeon Stylites, the Elder

Byzantine Saints: Church New Year

Eastern Rite ~ Feast of 1 September AM 7534

Today is the Beginning of the Indiction, that is, the New Year, the Commemoration of Our Holy Father Symeon the Stylite and His Mother Martha, and the Synaxis of the Most Holy Mother of God of Miasenes.

✠✠✠✠✠

The first day of the Church New Year is also called the beginning of the Indiction. The term Indiction comes from a Latin word meaning, “to impose.” It was originally applied to the imposition of taxes in Egypt. The first worldwide Indiction was in 312 when the Emperor St Constantine, Equal of the Apostles (May 21), saw a miraculous vision of the Cross in the sky. Before the introduction of the Julian calendar, Rome began the New Year on September 1.

According to Holy Tradition, Christ entered the synagogue on September 1 to announce His mission to mankind (Luke 4:16-22). Quoting Isaiah 61:1-2, the Savior proclaimed, “The spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord...” This scene is depicted in a Vatican manuscript (Vatican, Biblioteca. Cod. Gr. 1613, p.1).

Tradition says that the Hebrews entered the Promised Land in September.

Troparion — Tone 2

O Creator of the universe, / Thou didst appoint times by Thy power; / bless the crown of this year with Thy goodness, O Lord. / Preserve in safety Thy rulers and cities: / and through the intercessions of the Theotokos, save us!

Kontakion — Tone 4

O Creator and Master of time and the ages, / Triune and Merciful God of all: / grant blessings for the course of this year, / and in Thy boundless mercy save those who worship Thee and cry out in fear: / “O Savior, grant blessings to all mankind!”

✠✠✠✠✠

Saint Simeon the Stylite was born in the Cappadocian village of Sisan to Christian parents, Sisotian and Martha. At thirteen years of age he began to tend his father’s flock of sheep. He devoted himself attentively and with love to this, his first obedience.

Once, after he heard the Beatitudes in church, he was struck by their profundity. Not trusting to his own immature judgment, he turned therefore with his questions to an experienced Elder. The Elder readily explained to the boy the meaning of what he had heard. The seed fell on good soil, and it strengthened his resolve to serve God.

When Simeon was eighteen, he received monastic tonsure and devoted himself to feats of the strictest abstinence and unceasing prayer. His zeal, beyond the strength of the other monastic brethren, so alarmed the igumen that he told Simeon that to either moderate his ascetic deeds or leave the monastery.

Saint Simeon then withdrew from the monastery and lived in an empty well in the nearby mountains, where he was able to carry out his austere struggles unhindered. After some time, angels appeared in a dream to the igumen, who commanded him to bring back Simeon to the monastery.

The monk, however, did not long remain at the monastery. After a short while, he settled into a stony cave, situated not far from the village of Galanissa, and he dwelt there for three years, all the while perfecting himself in monastic feats. Once, he decided to spend the entire forty days of Great Lent without food or drink. With the help of God, the monk endured this strict fast. From that time he abstained from food completely during the entire period of the Great Lent, even from bread and water. For twenty days he prayed while standing, and for twenty days while sitting, so as not to permit the corporeal powers to relax.

A whole crowd of people began to throng to the place of his efforts, wanting to receive healing from sickness and to hear a word of Christian edification. Shunning worldly glory and striving again to find his lost solitude, the monk chose a previously unknown mode of asceticism. He went up a pillar six to eight feet high, and settled upon it in a little cell, devoting himself to intense prayer and fasting.

Reports of Saint Simeon reached the highest church hierarchy and the imperial court. Patriarch Domninos II (441-448) of Antioch visited the monk, celebrated Divine Liturgy on the pillar and communed the ascetic with the Holy Mysteries.

Elders living in the desert heard about Saint Simeon, who had chosen a new and strange form of ascetic striving. Wanting to test the new ascetic and determine whether his extreme ascetic feats were pleasing to God, they sent messengers to him, who in the name of these desert fathers were to bid Saint Simeon to come down from the pillar.

In the case of disobedience, they were to forcibly drag him to the ground. But if he was willing to submit, they were to leave him on his pillar. Saint Simeon displayed complete obedience and deep Christian humility. The monks told him to stay where he was, asking God to be his helper.

Saint Simeon endured many temptations, and he invariably gained victory over them. He relied not on his own weak powers, but on the Lord Himself, Who always came to help him. The monk gradually increased the height of the pillar on which he stood. His final pillar was 80 feet in height. Around him, a double wall was raised, which hindered the unruly crowd of people from coming too close and disturbing his prayerful concentration.

Women, in general, were not permitted beyond the wall. The saint did not make an exception even for his own mother, who after long and unsuccessful searches finally succeeded in finding her lost son. He would not see her, saying, “If we are worthy, we shall see one another in the life to come.” Saint Martha submitted to this, remaining at the foot of the pillar in silence and prayer, where she finally died. Saint Simeon asked that her coffin be brought to him. He reverently bid farewell to his dead mother, and a joyful smile appeared on her face.

Saint Simeon spent 80 years in arduous monastic feats, 47 years of which he stood upon the pillar. Many pagans accepted Baptism, struck by the moral staunchness and bodily strength which the Lord bestowed upon His servant.

The first one to learn of the death of the saint was his close disciple Anthony. Concerned that his teacher had not appeared to the people for three days, he went up on the pillar and found the dead body stooped over at prayer. Patriarch Martyrius of Antioch performed the funeral before a huge throng of clergy and people. They buried him near his pillar. At the place of his ascetic deeds, Anthony established a monastery, upon which rested the special blessing of Saint Simeon.

We pray to Saint Simeon for the return to the Church of those who have forsaken Her, or have been separated from Her.

Troparion — Tone 1

You were a pillar of patient endurance, / having imitated the forefathers, O Venerable One: / Job in suffering, and Joseph in temptations. / You lived like the bodiless ones while yet in the flesh, O Simeon, our Father. / Beseech Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Seeking the things of the Highest, / and having made your pillar a fiery chariot, you were joined to the heights. / Therefore, you have become a companion to the angels, O Venerable One, / and with them you are praying incessantly to Christ God for us all.

✠✠✠✠✠

Saint Martha lived in Cilicia of Asia Minor during the fourth and fifth centuries and came from a poor family. She and her husband Sisotion were the parents of Saint Simeon the Stylite.

At the age of eighteen, Simeon received the monastic tonsure without his parent's knowledge. Many years later, Martha came to the saint’s pillar in order to see him. Simeon sent word to her not to come, for if they were worthy, they would see each other in the life to come. Martha insisted on seeing him, and he had someone tell her to wait for a while in silence. Saint Martha agreed to this and waited at the foot of the hill where her son’s pillar stood. There she departed to the Lord.

When he heard that his mother had died, Saint Simeon ordered that her body be brought to the foot of his pillar. He prayed over his mother’s body for some time shedding many tears, and witnesses said that a smile appeared on Saint Martha’s face.

Troparion — Tone 8

By a flood of tears, you made the desert fertile, / and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance. / By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe! / Our Mother Martha, pray to Christ God to save our souls!

✠✠✠✠✠

The Miasena Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos was thrown into Lake Zagura in the ninth century in an effort to save it from the iconoclasts. After a long time, the wonderworking icon emerged from the water unharmed and was brought to the Miasena Monastery.