Committed to living as the presence of Christ
According to Saint Ephraim the Syrian (306 – 373), “The Church is not the assembly of saints, it is the mass of sinners who repent, who, sinners though they are, have turned towards God and are oriented towards Him.” As a people whose focus is on God, we are sinners who are committed to living as the presence of Christ in the world, and our holiness can not be separated from the holiness of God at work in this world.
Our sin is a pervading sickness or failure to achieve the goal of being truly human. We are called to fulfill our Divine design and function as the created image of God. Our sin, therefore, does not merely imply guilt for violating God’s commandments, but must be the impetus for become something other than what we are in our fallen state. Because each of us has an experience that is unique, conquering our personal sinful habits requires all our attention and correction.
The ultimate goal of this salvific process is to become deified, which is simply to reflect the Divine likeness. By becoming Christ-like in our behavior and in our thinking, we cooperate with God in this healing process, and are returned to God’s likeness.
It is from this perspective that we recognize our vocation as being Christ in the midst of this fallen world. For this world, just as are we, is called into the process of divinization, and we, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov tells us, can cause the salvation of a thousand around us, by acquiring inner peace. As we acquire a humble and contrite heart, we reveal Christ to the world, and promote the transformation of the whole of the Cosmos into the image and likeness of our Creator God.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Monday December 21, 2015 / December 8, 2015
30th Week after Pentecost. Tone four.
Nativity (St. Philip’s Fast). By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)
Venerable Patapius of Thebes (7th c.).
New Martyr John (Kochurov), priest (1918).
New Hieromartyr Sergius (1937)..
Venerable Cyril, abbot of Chelma Hill (1367).
Holy Apostles of the Seventy: Sosthenes, Apollos, Cephas, Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Caesar, and Onesiphorus.
Holy 362 Martyrs of Africa, martyred by the Arians, and Martyr Anthusa, at Rome (5th c.).
Martyr Anthusa at Rome (5th C).
St. Sophronius, bishop of Cyprus (8th c.).
St. Valerius, bishop of Trier (3rd c.).
St. Budoc, bishop of Plourin.
Scripture Readings
Hebrews 8:7-13
A New Covenant
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Luke 20:27-44
The Sadducees: What About the Resurrection?
27 Then some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 28 saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. 32 Last of all the woman died also. 33 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.”
34 Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36 nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”
39 Then some of the scribes answered and said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” 40 But after that they dared not question Him anymore.
Jesus: How Can David Call His Descendant Lord?
41 And He said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is the Son of David? 42 Now David himself said in the Book of Psalms:
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
43 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’
44 Therefore David calls Him ‘Lord’; how is He then his Son?”