COVID-19 CATECHESIS
SUNDAY OF THE MYRRHBEARING WOMEN
Reflections and Daily Inspiration

“If you wish, the Lives of the Saints are a sort of Orthodox Encyclopedia. In them can be found everything which is necessary for the soul which hungers and thirsts for eternal righteousness and eternal truth in this life, and which hungers and thirsts for Divine immortality and eternal life. If faith is what you need, there you will find it in abundance: and you will feed your soul with food which will never make it hungry. If you need love, truth, righteousness, hope, meekness, humility, repentance, prayer, or whatever virtue or podvig, in them, the Lives of the Saints, you will find a countless number of holy teachers for every podvig and will obtain grace-filled help for every virtue.”

— St. Justin Popovich
TODAY'S RECOMMENDATION
The withered Palm Tree
Covid-19 Update
by V. Rev. Protopresbyter Stavrophor Nikola Ceko
Dean of Saint Steven's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral
in Alhambra, California
FROM THE NEWS

Vasile Banescu, a spokesman for the Romanian Patriarchate, denounced billboards depicting doctors and nurses as “saints” with coronavirus-shaped halos as a blasphemous “visual mistreatment of Christian iconography” on Wednesday.

The posters, created by Romanian artist Wanda Hutira for the McCann Worldgroup ad agency’s “Thank you doctors” campaign and posted throughout Bucharest, have also offended the Medical Guild, Banescu said.

The scandalous images combine eclectic elements of Indian religious art and Orthodox iconography. In one image, a character wearing a robe, goggles, stethoscope, and mask, blesses with his right hand, as does Christ in Orthodox iconography, while holding a medical chart in his left. In another, a nurse is depicted with several hands, as in images of the god Shiva, the creator and destroy of the universe in Hindu mythology.
SAINT OF THE DAY
MAY 3 / APRIL 20

The Venerable Theodore Trichinas, hermit, near Constantinople (400)

Theodore was a citizen of Constantinople and the son of wealthy parents. As a young man he left his parents’ home and riches and entered an eremitic monastery in Thrace. Here he imposed upon himself a most rigorous life of asceticism. He slept on stones in order to sleep less. He traveled everywhere bareheaded and clothed himself in one garment made of goat’s hair, for which he was called “Trichinas”, “hairy” or “the Hair-shirt Wearer.” Because of his great ascetic labors for the sake of the salvation of his soul, God bestowed upon him the great gift of miracle-working, both during his lifetime and after death. He died peacefully in about the year 400. His body was seen to be flowing with myrrh.