Mother Maria

We were gone yesterday--we traveled to Santa Cruz to the church of the Prophet Elias to celebrate their feast day with them. (To my non-Orthodox readers....read on, it's not all about Orthodoxy, but also about social justice and resisting the Nazis.) It was a nice day. But July 20 is not only the feast day of Prophet Elias on the Orthodox calendar, but also the feast day of Mother Maria of Paris.

Mother Maria was a Russian immigrant to Paris. She was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. She was approached by her bishop, asking her to become a nun, but she knew she could never be the kind of cloistered nun who shut herself away from the world. Her bishop gave her his blessing to be a nun who worked and lived alongside the poor of Paris. She opened a house of hospitality in Paris, where she fed the poor every day, and housed anyone who needed a place to stay. When the Nazis invaded Paris, she and the priest who also worked at the house of hospitality began to hide Jews. Fr. Klepinin would also issue fake baptismal certificates to Jews so they could possibly avoid being sent to concentration camps. They and some with them (including Mother Maria's son) were eventually sent to concentration camps. There is some evidence that Mother Maria died in place of another sent to die.

When she was made a saint in May of 2004, we attended her canonization in Paris. What a great experience! We found the apartment building where her house of hospitality used to be, where there is a plaque telling all about her resistance to the Nazis. Mother Maria was of the theology that says responding to one in need is more important than prayer. We are trying to follow her example.

For more info about Mother Maria, go to http://incommunion.org/contents/mother-maria

We didn't get a whole lot of pictures in Paris, and none of the canonization, due to the fact that I dropped the camera and it was irreparable. :-( But here's some pictures of us in Paris.