by Mother Catherine Abrikosova

Reviewed by Marie Keiser

Translated by Joseph Lake and Brendan King. Edited by Brendan King. Published by St. Augustine’s Press, 2019.

When your country is on the verge of civil war and militant atheists with no tolerance for dissent are trying to take over, starting a convent in the nation’s capitol might not be the first thing on most people’s agenda. Fortunately, Mother Catherine Abrikosova, author of The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross, was not most people.

Mother Catherine, as editor and co-translator Brendan King writes in his introduction, started a Byzantine Catholic convent in her apartment in Moscow in 1917, just as the Bolshevik revolution was erupting. She and her fellow sisters “offered themselves as a sacrifice, unto the last drop of blood, for the Salvation of Russia and for priests,” a salvation she saw as synonymous with Russia returning to full communion with Rome while maintaining its ancient Byzantine rite.

After the Communist regime outlawed religious teaching, she and her fellow sisters started a secret Catholic school to preserve tradition in a new generation of children. Knowing that their work would be discovered, and that the penalty for it would be harsh, Mother Catherine wrote a meditation for her fellow sisters to prepare them for the coming ordeal.

The resulting work, The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross, is a beautiful and encouraging meditation on the love of Christ, as expressed through His last words.

From “Father forgive them,” to “Into Thy Hands, I commend my spirit,” Christ’s words on the Cross are an expression of His infinite, unconditional love. Strongly rooted in doctrine and Scripture, Mother Catherine’s description of the Passion reminds us just how startling the Divine generosity is, both in the extremity of the torment Christ endures, and in the depth of the love He expresses.

More than that, however, her meditations are a challenge—a demand—for us to take Christ’s words for our own, to put ourselves on the cross with Him, allow ourselves to be crucified alongside Him, and make His radical sacrifice our own. Skillfully weaving an exposition of the soul’s spiritual progress and a call to holiness into a description of the Passion, Mother Catherine packs a lot into just a few pages.

If you are a busy Catholic with little time for reading, The Seven Last Words of Our Lord Upon the Cross might be just what you need to reignite your spiritual life next Lent. Or anytime. No reason to wait for Lent.