ORTHODOXY AND BEAUTY

Orthodoxy and Beauty are Inseparable

Orthodox Christianity attracted me from my very first encounter with the magnificence of it’s churches and the grandeur of her divine services. Having grown up amid the natural beauty of Northern Idaho, with mountains and lakes that could take our breath away, I’d previously found inspiration primarily in the world of nature.

Orthodoxy and beauty are inseparable because God and beauty are inseparable. The beauty of a sunset is a reflection of our Creator, just as the interior of a temple reflects our experience with this Creator God. We humans were formed as physical beings, placed in a material world and invited to commune with our Creator. The majesty and beauty of the created world inspires us to an awareness of God’s presence.

A bouquet of flowers placed in our icon corner has an internal affect on us. Created in God’s image, we in turn become creators. The beauty that comes from the artist’s brush or the poet’s voice, is an act of a creator. Taking our creative instincts into the realm of the spiritual unites us with God and connects us to the eternal. This is why an artist or a poet can experience the eternal when creating something of beauty.

God is the Creator of heaven and earth and is present through His creative energies. The material world, being good, is an important means through which God expresses Himself. It is through God’s created beauty that we are drawn into a relationship that is meant to be eternal and through which Divine Revelation can transform our nature. Then creation is completed and the created is united to the Creator.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Friday July 16, 2021 / July 3, 2021
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Fast. Food with Oil
Martyr Hyacinth of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
Translation of the relics (1652) of Hieromartyr Philip, metropolitan of Moscow (1569).
New Hieromartyr Anthony, archbishop of Archangelsk (1931).
Uncovering of the relics of Sylvester, bishop of Omsk (2005).
Venerable Anatolius, of the Near Caves in Kiev (12th c.).
St. Anatolius (another) recluse of the Far Caves in Kiev (13th c.).
0Holy Princes Basil (1249) and Constantine (1257) of Yaroslavl.
Repose of St. Basil, bishop of Ryazan (1295).
Venerables John and Longinus, wonderworkers of Yarenga (Solovki) (1544-45).
Blessed John of Moscow, fool-for-Christ (1589).
Venerable Nicodemus, abbot of Kozha Lake (1640).
Martyrs Diomedes, Eulampius, Asclepiodotus, and Golinduc of Caesarea in Cappadocia (108).
Martyrs Mocius (Mucian) and Mark (4th c.).
Venerable Alexander, founder of the Monastery of the Unsleeping Ones (430).
St. Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople (458).
Venerable Isaiah the Solitary of Seeds and Palestine (370).
Blessed Michael, Herodion, Basil, and Thomas, fools-for-Christ of Solvychegodsk (17th c.).
St. Germanus, bishop of the Isle of Man and enlightener of Peel, nephew of St. Patrick of Ireland (5th c.) (Celtic & British).
Martyrs Theodotus and Theodota, martyred with St. Hyacinth (Greek).
Venerable Gerasimus the New of Carpenision (1812) (Greek).
St. Claudianus, patriarch of Alexandria (167).
St. Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea, and his successor, St. Eusebius (3rd c.).
St. Symeon, the third stylite of Cilicia (6th c.).
St. George the God-bearer of the Black Mountain, teacher of St. George of Mt. Athos (10th c.)
St. Basil, archbishop of Novgorod (1352).

The Scripture Readings

Luke 6:17-23

Jesus Heals a Great Multitude

17 And He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, 18 as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits. And they were healed. 19 And the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all.

The Beatitudes

20 Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
22 Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man’s sake.
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.

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 [c]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.”

Hebrews 13:17-21

17 Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

Prayer Requested

18 Pray for us; for we are confident that we have a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honorably. 19 But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Benediction, Final Exhortation, Farewell

20 Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

John 10:9-16

9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice;and there will be one flock and one shepherd.