Success Through Failure In Lent

My soul’s dignity I have enslaved to the passions; I am become like the beasts, and have no power to lift mine eyes to Thee, O Most High. But with my head bowed like the Publican, I pray to Thee, O Christ, and cry aloud: God be merciful to me and save me. (Verse 10, Lord I have Called, Friday Presanctified Liturgy, fourth week of Lent)   All of the great spiritual…

Success

I did a forty day memorial recently for a woman who died at a relatively young age (by today’s standards) who had been an immigrant to Canada from a war-torn Orthodox country where she had been raised in near abject poverty.  As young adults this young woman and her husband immigrated to Canada, worked very hard and raised two very successful children. Both have become doctors, one at a major research university.…