He may not have been born in Canada, but he was exiled and died there, and a national shrine of Canadian martyrs is named for him. He is Blessed Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky (feast day: June 27), a Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop martyred for the faith after the Soviet Union’s takeover of Ukraine during World War II.
If you had money, power, and status second only to the king of your country, would you be able to lay it all down for the sake of conscience and faith? Would you possess a trust in God greater than your many extraordinary possessions? Saint Thomas More, whom we celebrate on June 22, is a gallant example.
As we celebrate Father’s Day, let us remember the Father who is in Heaven from whom all fatherhood takes its name, says Chris Sparks. Let us remember that God the Father is rich in mercy, and that St. Joseph, model of earthly fatherhood, is most remembered for his silence, not his dominance; for his wife and Son, whom he tended with such effective love and dedication, not for his earthly power.