From the Prayer Journal of Fr. Jack Tolley

Friends. "Be part of healing the world." That's what Maria Skobtsova did. This reflection by Shannon MacVean-Brown, the eleventh bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, appeared in the July 21, 2020 issue of Forward Day by Day. It calls all of us to follow Maria's example by becoming involved in the issues of your community and the world. 
Blessings, love, and hugs from a safe distance,
Fr. Jack.
 
Romans 14: 7-8. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.
 
Maria Skobtsova lived a full life in her fifty-three years. Part of the cultural elite in Saint Petersburg, Russia, she was a poet, theology student, mayor, social activist, immigrant, register of Nazis, and finally a nun who would only submit to a religious rule if she could live her life with an open door to the world. Mother Maria ministered to the poor and eventually to Jews seeking safety in Nazi-occupied France. She and a priest -one of her partners in ministry - were arrested for forging baptismal certificates for Jewish victims of the Nazis. She was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she died in a gas chamber. Mother Maria, saint of the open door, insisted on being completely involved with the issues of  her day. Her faith in Jesus arose from her fervent desire to be part of healing the world.