The Church Provides Oxygen

Temples are like forests where our spiritual lungs are filled

Growing up in Northern Idaho, I was surrounded by mountains and forests. I don’t remember a time when forests did not tug at my heart and fill my imagination with thoughts of adventure. As a small child my parents took my brother Dwayne, and me, on annual camping trips to a state park on the far northeast side of Lake Pend Oreille. There my dad would make us small toy canoes, complete with sails, out of birch bark. This state park is virtually unchanged since that time, and I try to visit the campground every summer, when I go bass fishing with my brother.

As a high school student I regularly went hiking in the mountains around Sandpoint, Idaho, together with my best friend (now a retired professor of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland). Jim and I would climb to the highest point of a given mountain, and pray together. We could understand the Prophet Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai, for we too felt the presence of God on the mountain. To this day I feel closer to God when hiking in a forest, and the grandeur of the mountains that surround the Puget Sound inspire me, and lift up my soul.

When we first cleared the land to build the monastery, we cut down as few trees as possible, desiring as we did to have the buildings appear as though cupped like a kitten in the hands of God. We even named our forest after Saint Seraphim of Sarov, who himself sought solitude in a forest. Our forest not only provides that needed solitude, but like the forests throughout the whole world, provides good air to breath, and fills our lungs with the sweet odor that only a forest can provide.

Monks have always had a special place in their hearts for forests. Coptic and Ethiopian monks have been known to plant trees on desert mountains whereupon monasteries have been built, and calling these places, “holy forests”. Russian monks sought their solitude in the Northern Thebaid, forests that became their desert.

For me, forests and mountains have always been associated with prayer. My first chapel was at the end of a hidden trail, in a forest that was just a short walk down the beach from our home on Lake Pend Oreille. I’d constructed a small altar out of driftwood, and nailed a cross made out of tree branches on a tree behind the altar. When in college, my first encounter with an icon took place during the very summer I’d visited the Redwood Forest of Northern California for the first time.

Our temples are like forests in many ways. When we enter into an Orthodox temple we are encompassed in the living presence of God, and our spiritual lungs are filled. It is oxygen for the soul that we breath in, and the forest that surrounds us is none other than the cloud of witnesses, the saints, who join us in worship before the Throne of God. The oxygen we breath in is God’s Grace that flows out to all who would seek the safety and sanctuary that awaits us in God’s Holy Temple. It is the breath of life that comes in our relationship with Christ.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Thursday June 23, 2016 / June 10, 2016
Afterfeast of Pentecost. Tone seven.
Fast-free Week. Fast-free

Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Surety of Sinners” in Korets (1622) (movable holiday on Thursday of the 1-st week of the Pentecost).
Hieromartyr Timothy, bishop of Prusa (362).
Finding of the relics (1609) of St. Basil, bishop of Ryazan (1295).
Synaxis of All Saints of Riazan.
St. John Maximovitch, Metropolitan of Tobolsk (1715).
Synaxis of All Saints of Siberia: St. Innocent, bishop of Irkutsk (1731); St. Macarius (Glukharev) of Altai (1847); St. Macarius (Nevsky), metropolitan of Moscow, apostle to Altai (1926); and others.
New Hieromartyr Nicholas, Basil priests and Martyr Paul (1918).
New Hieromartyr Timothy priest (1940).
Venerable Silvanus of the Far Caves in Kiev (14th c.).
Martyr Alexander and Virgin-martyr Antonina at Constantinople (313).
Venerable Theophanes, monk, of Antioch (363), and St. Pansemne, the former harlot of Antioch.
St. Bassian, bishop of Lodi in Lombardy (409).
St. Paul, metropolitan of Tobolsk (1770).
Hieromartyr Metrophanes, the first Chinese priest, and the Chinese New Martyrs of the Boxer Uprising, at Peking and other places in 1900.
Martyr Neaniscus the Wise of Alexandria (Greek).
St. Canides, monk, of Cappadocia (460) (Greek).
St. Apollo, bishop (Greek).
St. Alexius of Bithynia, bishop (Greek).
St. Asterius, bishop of Petra (4th c.).

Scripture Readings

Romans 1:28-2:9

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

God’s Righteous Judgment

2 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. 3 And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: 7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, 9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;

Matthew 5:27-32

Adultery in the Heart

27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

Marriage Is Sacred and Binding

31 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.