File this under “News you won’t be hearing on NPR anytime soon”
And in a related story from the Culture War front, file this story which features a Kennedy, secret agents and sex scamming under “News you won’t read anywhere in the mainstream media — period.” Nope, no liberal bias there.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we held the funeral services for Fr. John Platko. Archbishop JOB said in his remarks at the beginning that the Serbian words for funeral carry the meaning that you “sing away” the deceased. I thought that understanding was particularly appropriate for someone as musically inclined as Fr. John. And I also […]

On April 20 and 21, 2005, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church performed the funeral services required for a priest for Fr. John Platko. The quotes are from those services, and my thoughts are interspersed.
In faith and hope and love,
in meekness and purity and priestly worth,
uprightly you discharged your sacred functions, O memorable one.
Therefore the eternal God […]

I’m was in Chicago for the day yesterday, and Greg-the-husband had given me a wondrous gift of time. And so I found myself at 10 am on a rainy, cold morning huddled in the doorway of what I think is the best art museum I’ve ever seen — the Art Institute in Chicago.
When Greg let […]

Who’d a thought it? They came up with a new pope in only two days, and it’s Ratzinger, the German conservative.

Well, he was certainly my favorite candidate, from the little bit of commentary and analysis I read about it. I mean, given the quote that Greg-the-husband passed on to me, how can you not love […]

I’ll go ahead and leave the last entry, but just as I was hitting the “Publish” key, the phone tree called to say that Fr. John had passed away. He will be greatly, greatly missed.

Some time ago I asked for prayers for Fr. John, the priest at my new church who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His condition is very grave now, so I’m changing the request to prayers for a holy death. It’s a sad time for the parish and also for his family — he leaves […]

Herman clued me in to the happy follow-up to this story of the person selling a sanctified communion wafer from a papal mass on eBay, and for once it’s good news. Even though the eBay auction had been completed for $2000, apparently the sale was never finalized, and now the seller has withdrawn the […]

The fifth Sunday of Lent in the Orthodox calendar is always set aside to commemorate St. Mary of Egypt, though her actual saint’s day is April 1, the date of her passing according to the sixth century account of her meetings with a monastic wanderer that provide our only knowledge of this truly amazing person. […]

In the sixth century, Orthodox monasteries began to circulate the story of St. Mary of Egypt, an illiterate woman with a sinful past whose ascetic labors and gifts surpassed the strictest monastic. She had received no earthly tutoring, lived the majority of her life alone in the deserts of the Holy Land and would’ve died […]