Contrition Brings On A Pure Heart
Recollection of God is required if we are to be reconciled with God. Seeking to be aware of God throughout the day helps us remember to do battle with the passions and leads to repentance. Contrition brings on the grace needed to gain a pure heart, which in turn joins us to God in pure love.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Friday June 30, 2023 / June 17, 2023
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Apostles’ (Peter & Paul) Fast. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)
Martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael of Persia (362).
New Hieromartyrs Aberkius priest and Nicander (1918).
New Hieromartyr Maximus (1934).
Virgin-Martyr Pelagia (1943).
Hieromartyr Philoneides, bishop of Kurion in Cyprus (306).
Venerables Joseph and Pior, disciples of St. Anthony the Great (4th c.).
Uncovering of the relics (1562) of the Alfanov Brothers of Novgorod (1389): Saints Nicetas, Cyril, Nicephorus, Clement, and Isaac of Novgorod, founders of the Sikolnitzki Monastery.
Venerable Ananias the Iconographer of Novgorod (1581).
Martyr Nectan of Hartland (Devon) (6th c.), and St. Botolph, abbot and confessor, of Boston (England) (680) (Celtic & British).
Martyr Isaurus, and with him Basil, Innocent, Felix, Hermes, and Peregrinus of Athens (Greek).
St. Aetius the Eunuch, enlightener of Ethiopia, baptized by the Apostle Philip (1st c.).
Martyr Shalva of Akhaltsikhe (1227) (Georgia).
St. Hypatius, abbot of monastery of Rufinianos (446).
The Scripture Readings
Romans 11:25-36
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. 32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
35 “Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Matthew 12:1-8
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”
3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord [b]even of the Sabbath.”