Unbelievable! It happened again! It seems to happen every time. Recently, our parish (Holy Eucharist, Winnipeg) made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Blessed Bishop Martyr Vasyl at St. Joseph Parish. After the Moleben service in the church, everyone went into the shrine to be anointed with oil that had been touched to the holy relics of the saint. I was almost the last to be anointed of the close to 75 people who had come that night. Afterwards, I stood before his holy relics and prayed. And again, like the times before, I had the sense that I was standing before a fire. There was no heat. It was a sense of being present before a strong light, unlike any other light. I have had that sense every time I have come to pray before Blessed Vasyl’s relics over the last five years.
I have asked the question many times—why? The only answer worth listening is the one that Fr. John Sianchuk, CSsR gives so often—Blessed Vasyl is here in Winnipeg for the sake of holiness. Holiness. And then I ask – whose holiness? Mine? Yours? Ours? The answer is—yes. All of the above.
“Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy,” says the Lord through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah. Blessed Vasyl was given to us, to be in our midst, in the midst of the Communion of Saints, as an example of how to be holy in the modern world.
I think I know what you are thinking. How can I be holy? Holiness must be for other people. Yes, I think the same way at times, too. But the fact is that the Lord wants us to be like Him so that we can live in Him. What now arises is the question—how do I do it? The answer is that “I” don’t do it. It is the Lord who makes me holy, who makes us holy. It is His work in us. We only have to give way to Him.
I truly believe that this is the path that Blessed Vasyl followed on his way to martyrdom. It wasn’t the martyrdom that made him holy. Rather, it was his availability to being used by the Lord; it was his surrender to the Lord; it was his imitation of the most pure Mother of God—“Let it be done unto me according to your word.” I am sure that is why he had such a deep and profound devotion to the Mother of God. He found in her the perfect example of surrender to the Lord, of being used by the Lord, of being holy.
This recognition of God’s presence in our daily lives, not just once through the day but at each moment in the day, is an important step to being made holy. St. Paul puts it well when he writes, “It is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.” Allowing this to happen, giving way the Lord, and recognizing His presence and activity in our lives is key to being holy.
Blessed Vasyl’s presence in our midst is the call of our Lord to holiness. It is our Lord’s voice calling us to be like Him, to dwell in Him, to find all our being in Him.
What’s your answer to this call?
Let’s pray for one another, indeed, for every member of the parish, that we may enter deeply into the holiness of the Lord. And if you need some help, go, sit before the holy relics of Blessed Vasyl—sit before the fire of God’s presence—and ask him for help. He is an elder brother in Christ. Still following the example of the most pure Mother of God, he will ask the Lord on our behalf. And the Lord will answer.
(from the May 2007 Newsletter of the Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky Shrine)
