So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

Today is a precious day for the Holy Church. Today marks our patronal feast —“ the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa.

The universal Church celebrates this feast, but it has particular import for us. For under her patronage we are blessed. Under her patronage we strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees. We make straight paths for our feet. In truth we work and struggle so that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

Brothers and sisters,

If I had intended to bore you today I could have gone on about the history of this icon, this miraculous image. I could have talked about the writing of this icon, its travels, and the wars that raged around it, the great and small miracles attributed to it.

I could paint a picture of the walls of the monastery at Jasna Gora, bejeweled with the gifts of the rich, the gifts of kings, princes, and knights —“ all in thanksgiving for blessings received through her patronage. I could describe the crutches that adorn those walls —“ and all the medical devices that were left behind in tribute to her for the healing found there.

It is magnificent.

But, brothers and sisters,

Listen instead to the words from Isaiah which we proclaimed today:

I will set a sign among them;
from them I will send fugitives to the nations:
and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.

Isn’t that us? Aren’t we those fugitives? Aren’t we immigrants and children of immigrants? And, isn’t she the sign, the patron, under whom we proclaim God’s glory to the nations?

Oh, yes, she is —“ and so much more. Our beautiful mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa is a sacramental sign, a doorway to faith in God, faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The Orthodox Church teaches that Icons are simply Holy Scripture made visible, just as the Word, Jesus Christ, is made visible through the incarnation. They are more than pretty pictures —“ and they are not painted, but written in prayer.

Through this icon and under our Lady’s patronage we gather to learn. We gather to receive the most precious gift of all, her beloved Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ. We look at her and listen to her Son as He teaches us. The doorway is opened and we experience miracles.

We are healed, we are brought together, enmity is set aside, and hurts are acknowledged and forgiven. We subsist and we grow. We gather in the harvest and feed the hungry. We care for the weak and we educate the young. We pray.

This parish, founded under her patronage, does not ‘get-it’ easy. There is no lack of suffering and sadness. Yet, as the Letter to the Hebrews teaches:

—…for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.—

We have heard the Letter to the Hebrews preached from this place, in front of this icon, for eighty-seven years. We have endured our trials as —discipline.—

As we are told:

all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.

…and we have been trained by it.

My friends,

I mentioned that the Letter to the Hebrews has been preached in front of this icon for eighty-seven years. It was preached in front of her, even when we could not see her.

Even when her image was destroyed by fire on December 31st, 1946, she remained with us.

By faith we saw beyond what we could see —“ and that my friends, is what this icon is all about.

Now, through the beneficence of the Very Rev. Wieslaw Pietruszka she adorns this place once again. Yet, by our suffering, we have been trained to look at her, and to pass through her, to see into eternity, to see the love of God.

On this patronal feast, we must consider our faith. Consider how the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa adorns our lives. Where does she hang in your life and mine? On a wall in the living room or bedroom?

Not only —“ for I know that she adorns our hearts. I know that she is part of us. I know that she stands ready to open the door to us —“ to point to her Son, as she does in this icon. She is saying, here He is. Listen to Him. She waits for our response.

Beloved in Christ,

Today we sing the song of praise written by the psalmist:

Praise the LORD all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.

Under her patronage we tell the Good News. Under her patronage we will be victorious.

Amen.