Holy Mountain

The holy mountain on Vashon Island

Many years ago I spent a month in Greece, including ten days on Mount Athos. When I returned to the United States, via New York City, I suffered major culture shock. I found myself grieving for the loss of the simple life of the Holy Mountain, with its lack of cell phones, electricity, vehicles, and noise. From the monks and pilgrims traversing the medieval cobblestone roads, with walking sticks in hand, and the occasional monk leading his donkey, laden with supplies, to the rush of an American airport, was a shock. Running between connecting flights, coupled with the seemingly endless flight to Seattle, I felt as though I had been ripped from paradise.

However, returning to the old farmhouse on Vashon Island, which had served as our temporary monastery, was like paradise regained. It enabled me to reenter the rhythm of daily monastic life, with services, the cell rule, gardening, spiritual reading, and simple monastic food, while keeping me connected to the Holy Mountain. Although I felt sad that the co-founder of the monastery, Father Paul, had not been able to experience Mount Athos, I also knew he was committed, as was I, to create a Holy Mountain on Vashon Island, where God had placed us.

Sitting on the veranda of the monastery’s trapeza this evening, brought full circle my time on the Holy Mountain, and how God, in His great mercy, has blessed us with our own holy mountain, right here on Vashon Island. Glory to God for His great and loving mercy.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Friday June 26, 2015 / June 13, 2015

4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Apostles’ (Peter & Paul) Fast. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Martyr Aquilina of Byblos in Lebanon (293).
St. Triphyllius, bishop of Leucosia (Nicosia) in Cyprus (370).
St. Alexandra, foundress of Diveyevo Convent (1789).
New Hieromartyr Alexander priest (1918).
New Hieromartyr Demetrius priest (1940).
Virgin-Martyr Pelagea (1944).
Venerable Andronicus (1395), disciple of Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, and St. Sabbas (1410), abbots of Moscow.
Martyr Antonina of Nicaea (284-305).
Venerable Anna (826), and her son St. John of Constantinople (9th c.).
St. Antipater, bishop of Bostra in Arabia (458).
Finding of the relics of Martyr Nicholas the Deacon of Lesbos (Greek).
St. Eulogius, patriarch of Antioch (Greek).
Martyr Diodorus of Emesus who was crucified (Greek).
St. Anthimus, Metropolitan of Wallachia (1716) (Georgia).

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 even of the Sabbath.”