Matushka Olga
Life in a small Alaskan village in the early twentieth century must have brought many hardships, but Matushka Olga Michael kept her hands and her heart busy as she baked holy bread, knitted mittens, sewed vestments for her husband, created traditional Eskimo boots called mukluks and sent them as gifts to other parishes, gave away her children’s clothes to the poor (while the clothes still fit), was a midwife, and had a gentle ministry of helping those who had been sexually abused. Her outwardly simple life of being a quiet priest’s wife was inwardly buzzing with joyful ministry and service to others.
How can we emulate her saintly ways in our own lives by diligently doing what is before us and having quiet, loving hearts for the heartbroken ones we meet? Can we, like Matushka Olga, see the possibility of great beauty arising from great brokenness?
“Our God who makes the moving curtain of the northern lights made you as a living light, shining in the far north and lighting up the desolate with His great beauty. Beholding this radiance, we your children lift up our voices and sing: Rejoice, Matushka Olga, healer of the abused and broken!”
