As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, Metropolitan Saba reflects on the life and witness of St. Raphael of Brooklyn, the first Orthodox bishop of any background consecrated on American soil. Uniquely prepared by his travels through Damascus, Constantinople, Halki, Kiev, and Moscow and his command of many languages, St. Raphael tirelessly planted parishes for Orthodox immigrants across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Metropolitan Saba holds him up as a model for our own time: one who moved between cultures, upheld the faith without compromise, and encouraged the faithful to embrace their new homeland. He calls us to honor these "founding fathers" of American Orthodoxy, learn from their witness, and continue nurturing what grew from their labors as new believers embrace the faith by choice.

In the third part of his reflection on secularism, Metropolitan Saba examines how believers respond to the unprecedented challenges that modernity — now called "postmodernity" — poses to the faith. He describes two currents that have emerged: one that treats every new thing as suspect and retreats to guard the purity of the faith without going out to meet a thirsting world, and another so enchanted by modernity that it blurs the line between the spirit of the world and the spirit of the Gospel. Both, he warns, drift toward an extremism built on conviction rather than prayerful love, threatening the unity of the Church. Drawing on the failed 2016 Council and the words of Olivier Clément, he points to the hesychastic life of prayer — the gentle breeze in which God spoke to Elijah — as the only path to clear vision and true love for the brother "for whom Christ died."

In the second part of his reflection on secularism, Metropolitan Saba warns of what happens when prayer weakens and ritual replaces the sanctifying life: the Church risks becoming a mere institution of this age, even a high-caliber humanitarian one, while losing her true mission of raising man toward the Kingdom of God. He examines how activism and fundamentalism are both betrayals of the Gospel, drawing on Father Alexander Schmemann, the witness of Mother Teresa, and the warning of the prophet Jeremiah, and calls the faithful back to a living spirit of prayer so that worldliness loses its grip and the Church remains truly the Church of Christ.

In this week's reflection, His Eminence Metropolitan Saba (Isper) examines the growing influence of secularism on modern Christian life. He explores how secularism — the philosophy of managing life by human ability alone, without God — has created a divide between faith and everyday living. Through practical examples such as prayer in illness, the sacrament of marriage, and fasting practices, Metropolitan Saba illustrates how a secular mindset can hollow out the spiritual essence of Christian life, reducing sacred traditions to mere formality. He calls the faithful to examine where the culture of the age has displaced the demands of the Gospel in their lives.