Your Generosity Is Appreciated!
Every day I write blog articles, and I am the only one who responds to the huge volume of correspondence that comes in due to these postings. People from all over the world seek spiritual guidance, many of whom are suffering and have no one else to help them, so I try my best to respond.
I can hardly keep up, and consequently am forced to set priorities that often leave some people wondering why I have not written a personal “thank you note”, expressing gratitude for a donation. They see me as remiss in expressing thanks to all our friends and benefactors. To all of you who have felt this way, I ask your forgiveness. Do not think for a moment that your donation is not appreciated, or that it is taken for granted. My desk is piled with envelopes that were received with checks from supporters, and our website has numerous PayPal donors that deserve a personal response, so you are not alone.
I record four video films each week, and often am left so exhausted that I barely have energy left to visit with the many folks who make a personal visit to our monastery. I am regularly called upon to lecture at area college campuses, and I receive numerous pilgrims to the monastery every month, especially during these summer months, often people who are curious about the monastery, and who are deserving of a personal tour, and having their questions answered.
God has always blessed me with a great deal of energy, but now that I am seventy-seven years of age, I am finding less and less energy to spend with visitors and correspondence. I am not complaining about the duties God has placed before me. I just wish to let all of you know that I do notice when you’ve donated to the monastery, and I do pray for all of you, our benefactors. Even when I seem, by my tardiness in offering thanks, to be ungrateful, I remember each of you in my prayers, and hold you close to my heart. And please remember that when we monks pray “for the benefactors of this holy monastery”, you are the very ones we have in mind.
Please forgive me.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Thursday June 29, 2023 / June 16, 2023
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Apostles’ (Peter & Paul) Fast. Fish Allowed
St. Tychon, bishop of Amathus in Cyprus (425).
Venerable Tikhon of Kaluga or Medin (1492).
Venerable Tikhon of Lukhov (1503).
Venerable Moses of Optina, founder of the Optina Skete (1862).
New Martyr Hermogenes (Germogen), bishop of Tobolsk, Euphremius, Michael and Peter priests and Martyr Constantine (1918).
Translation of the relics (2002) of St. Theophan the Recluse, bishop of Tambov (1894).
Martyrs Tigrius and Eutropius of Constantinople (404).
Venerable Tikhon of Krestogorsk (Vologda).
St. Mark the Just of Apollonias, nephew of the Apostle Barnabas.
Five Martyrs of Nicomedia (Greek).
Forty Martyrs of Rome (Greek).
St. Kaikhosro the Georgian (1612) (Georgia).
St. Ismael, bishop of Menevia.
The Scripture Readings
Romans 11:13-24
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, 18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” 20 Well said.Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. 22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Matthew 11:27-30
27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”