Blog Posts
In April 2023, I traveled to Serbia to adopt my son.
He was ten years old and living with a foster family in Belgrade. Months away from returning to the orphanage, he had aged out of the stage where squishy cheeks and little-kid innocence meant adoptability. He was old enough to comprehend this ominous situation while acutely feeling the culmination of years of trauma, so he was acting out and refusing to do schoolwork.
Our next pilgrimage story comes to us from Natalie Kuchta. You may recognize the school she visited from a previous pilgrimage story! (You can find it here: https://www.axiawomen.org/blog/pilgrimage-story-christ-my-heart.) We hope you enjoy her reflections on connecting with the saints and carrying their prayers back from a pilgrimage.
Desert mother. Pilgrim saint. These titles, given to Paula of Rome, epitomize the contrasts and paradoxes of her life.
Sometimes regarded as the first female monastic, St. Paula began her adult life primarily as a mother to six children. Raised in a wealthy Christian household in fourth-century Rome, Paula was married to a wealthy nobleman with whom she lived in peace and prosperity for sixteen years. It was her husband’s sudden death when she was only thirty-two that first brought the desert into her life.
It is not anything extraordinary we do to become a saint, but in the ordinary acts of our lives. - paraphrased from Fr. Michael Oleksa
On Monday, January 9th, viewers crowded into Cinema 21 in the Northwest district of Portland, Oregon, as lines to enter stretched out the door. A surprised staff checked tickets and guided us to Theater One, which was so crowded we began filling the balcony. Who knew, we could almost hear them thinking, that there are so many Orthodox people in Portland?
We walk in the company of the women who have gone before: judges, prophets, martyrs, warriors, poets, lovers, and saints, mothers of the faith, both named and unnamed, demonstrating how many beautiful and courageous paths we can walk together toward Christ.
In 2021, my husband and I had the privilege of spending three months in a home named in honor of St. Maria of Paris - a house of mutual hospitality that welcomed migrants and refugees as well as volunteers, living together in community and service. Before this, I knew nothing of Mother Maria (or Mere Marie, as she is called in France), or the turbulent and inspiring story of her life. In preparation for our time in the home, we were encouraged to read her biography and writings to understand the legacy of radical hospitality and love that she left behind.