Encouragement

---

Triumph For All Time
© 2008

by

Stephen A. Peterson


As a person ages, he or she recalls instances that impact their lives forever!

In 1965, much of the literary and artistic community awaited the release of David Lean’s screenplay of Boris Paternak’s novel “Dr. Zhivago”. For the senior class of 1965-1966 for Scecina Memorial High School, Dr. Zhivago was another burdensome novel listed as required reading to graduate. Not so for Sister Rita Clare, a Franciscan nun and the English Literature and Composition teacher, who through her month long readings and discussions, brought Pasternak’s work to life. However, fiction became reality when Sister invited an elderly woman to our classroom to bring another reality to Pasternak’s world—an eyewitness.

This short stature, gray haired woman with a Russian accent to her English sat in front of the class. She had been a teenager living in the Ukraine during and following the Russian Revolution of 1917. Her story told of hardship, death and destruction no one in the classroom, at the time, could seem to relate to.

“I suppose it’s so very sad now knowing Christianity in Russia is now a thing of the past,” a voice from the classroom commented.

“A thing of the past!” she exploded, her eyes snapping bright. “Let me tell you a little story seniors of Scecina Memorial High School! Early one morning on a sunny day much like this day in Indiana, the Bolsheviks came to our small village where our pastor worked and lived. They broke through the doors of the church and the rectory making a great fire with all the Bibles and religious books—some of them hundreds of years old. When the flames were leaping hot and high, they fired their rifles into the church, beat up the pastor, then left. The church, rectory and surrounding church grounds were in ruins. God’s word burned and the church grounds desecrated. That afternoon as the priest stood over the charred remains with much of our small community present. We were all heartbroken. Many of us began to cry. But do you have any idea as to what our pastor found in what was left of our little church and rectory?”

“What was it?” a single student voice asked without raising their hand.

Standing up, the elderly woman with a tear in her eye stated: “Our pastor saw a single white page of one of the books that miraculously did not burn. That single page was a position of the sixteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Much of the page was gone except for the section with these words, ‘Upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’. The pastor and everyone present knew that the Lord had left this portion of His Sacred Word as testimony and His promise of hope to us to say that He did not and will not ever abandon us. We all left with renewed faith, hope and happiness. Many of us died and are still dying to this very day for Our Lord and our faith.”

No one in the English class said a word.

“You wait and see, seniors of Scecina Memorial High School,” the elderly woman said. “The Lord and His Church will never become extinct in Russia. The state run newspapers and television tell you so but like in Rome in the first century A.D. we are the underground church in Russia. Millions of Russians and Ukrainian people have died in faith. But our blood and suffering are the seeds being planted for the future church in Russia and the world that is to come! The church will not die in Russia. It will not die anywhere at any time no matter how bad things seem. Mark my words, seniors!”

“I wonder if she’ll be right?” said a member of the class of 1966.

In the years since that November, 1965 day, the Berlin wall has fallen, Communism is past history in Russia and Christianity is openly being professed in Russia and in the rest of the former Soviet Union. The elderly woman from the Ukraine was right!

More than 40 year have passed since the senior class of 1965-1966 of Scecina Memorial High School listened to the story of the Ukrainian woman. Sister Rita Clare, the Ukrainian woman and several members of the class of 1966 have died to this life. However, her story of faith and hope lives as told by suppressed Christians throughout time and space worldwide. So when one hears the naysayers joyfully speak of the decline, death and destruction of Christianity and His church, take heart! No matter how bleak the situation appears, the King is in control with countless stories of triumph for this age and ages to come!!!

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE