Our Laziness and Misplaced Priorities
Our laziness and misplaced priorities regarding the Sunday and holy day services, keep us from our obligations to God, and endanger the soul, for in keeping ourselves away from God’s temple, we remain afar from the cure that comes from participating in the Divine Mysteries. Saint Gregory Palamas tells us that we “may remain uncured, suffering from unbelief in your soul because of deeds or words, and failing to approach Christ’s surgery to receive… holy healing”.
Orthodoxy is not a religion by which we can attain salvation in the privacy of our own home, for our faith is a communal faith, whereby we participate in the Body of Christ in a corporate way. It is in this life that we must participate in the communal life of the Church, for after death there is no treatment for that which separates us from God. There is no repentance after this life, because all people share the same end. Each of us is destined to see the Glory of God at the Second Coming of Christ.
Protopresbyter John Romanides tells us, “All people will see the Glory (Uncreated Light) of God, and from this viewpoint they have the same end. Everyone, of course, will see the Glory of God, but with one difference: The saved will see the Glory of God as a most sweet and never-setting Light, whereas the damned will see the same Glory of God as a consuming fire that will burn them.”
Our laziness, and our misplaced priorities, keep us from the Divine Mysteries, and deprive our soul of the healing grace that comes with an encounter with the Living God. As the Hospital of the Soul, the Church has been established by Christ Himself as that place wherein we receive the cure, so that we may bask in the Eternal Banquet that awaits us in the after life. By depriving ourselves of the grace filled Mysteries in this life, that are only found within the life of the Church, we separate ourselves from the very treatment that ensures eternal bliss in the next life.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Thank you! Thanks to your holy prayers, we are all recovering from COVID. The good news is that we all now have natural immunity!
Tuesday July 5, 2022 / June 22, 2022
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Apostles’ (Peter & Paul) Fast. Food with Oil
Hieromartyr Eusebius, bishop of Samosata (380).
New Hieromartyr Gennadius priest (1918).
New Hieromartyrs Theodore and Gabriel (1938).
New Hieromartyr Michael Stephanovsky.
St. Alban, protomartyr of Britain (305) (Celtic & British).
Martyrs Zeno and his servant Zenas of Philadelphia (304).
Martyrs Galacteon, Juliana, and Saturninus of Constantinople.
St. Gregory metropolitan of Valasha (1834) (Romania).
Martyr Pompian (Greek).
1,480 martyrs of Samaria in Palestine (615).
The Scripture Readings
Romans 10:11-11:2
11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lordshall be saved.”
Israel Rejects the Gospel
14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!”
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed:
“Their sound has gone out to all the earth,
And their words to the ends of the world.”
19 But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says:
“I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation,
I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.”
20 But Isaiah is very bold and says:
“I was found by those who did not seek Me;
I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.”
21 But to Israel he says:
“All day long I have stretched out My hands
To a disobedient and contrary people.”
Israel’s Rejection Not Total
11 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
Matthew 11:16-20
16 “But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, 17 and saying:
‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
And you did not lament.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.”
Woe to the Impenitent Cities
20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: