St. Catherine the Great Martyr and All-wise (source)
St. Catherine, my beloved, is a censure to our generation. She is a censure first to [many] women, for they have their minds solely on bodily beauty and are disinterested with spiritual beauty. And she is secondly a censure to men, for they show themselves to be lower than this woman. And thirdly, she is a censure to us clerics, for we don't bring souls near Christ like she did, but more likely, we cast them away...One woman brought 352 souls to Christ! And you, Father, how many souls have you brought to Christ? Take a piece of chalk and write: we are 8,000 priests***, while the twelve apostles turned the world upside-down, and one woman, St. Catherine, brought 352 souls to Christ...Take up your chalk and count...If each of us brought near to the Church 300 people, we would have millions [of Orthodox Christians]...
-Metropolitan Avgoustinos Kantiotes (+2010)
(translated and rearranged from source)
***The Metropolitan is referring to the number of clerics of his Church in Greece.
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
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