1. Do you want to Pray? Prepare yourself to meet the Lord in secret.
2. By God's Permission, some people become instruments of the Power of Darkness for our own testing and progress.

In the account of the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, in the same period, one is struck by the affectionate simplicity of the man and the power of his intercession. He welcomes the police officers as neighbors sent to him by God. He does not pray for himself but for all those whom he has met, good or bad, and for the Universal Church.

1. Never wish for anything but the Will of God and accept with love any trials that may come your way.
2. Never identify a person with the wrong way in which he is treating you, but see Christ in his heart.

Martyrdom means witness. But to bear witness to Christ to the point of death is to become one who has risen again. Christian martyrdom is a mystical experience, the first attested in the history of the Church. It is recorded right at the beginning by the example of Saint Stephen (Stefanos) the 'protomartyr' (first martyr) in the book of Acts of the Apostles thus: (Stephen), full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the Glory of God, and Jesus standing at the Right Hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened. And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God"

The condition in which the soul enters and lives directly after its separation from the body is called the Middle State by the God-bearing Fathers; this will continue until the Final and General Judgment of mankind to be enacted by the Savior Christ. It is so called because the soul does not receive its full and complete recompense, neither of virtue nor of evil. The soul exists there in a temporary state of anticipation, awaiting the great, glorious, fearful and terrible Second Coming of the Lord. There, in its temporary state, the soul experiences a foretaste of the blessedness of Paradise or of the punishment of Gehenna. The full and definite recompense will be given to it on the day of the General Judgment.

As we progress closer and closer to Great and Holy Week, it is good, I feel, to reflect on the Sayings by Mother Gabriel which are most inspiring:

1. Any place may become a place of Resurrection, if the humility of Christ becomes the way of our life.