God is in Control of the Forces of Nature
Photo: Matuskha Juliana Cardoza has informed me that her husband, Father Seraphim, passed away on Sunday afternoon. May his memory be eternal. He was a beloved friend to me, and I will miss him dearly.
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The massively destructive and deadly hurricanes that have plowed into the east coast of the United States should not have been a surprise to any of us. How could we expect there should not be consequences for a nation that has such a high number of our babies being aborted, has misused the resources given to us by God, advancing wars for the sake of financial gain, and oil, and given ourselves over in pride for our scientific and technological advances. We have become a people who have turned away from the worship of God for the worship of material goods, sports, entertainment, and self.
Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco often expressed the belief that absolutely nothing happens by chance, and that human behavior leads to inevitable consequences, either good or bad. The horrible tsunami that hit Southeast Asia a few years ago, killing thousands of people, devastated a country that had grown comfortable with a tourist trade made up of thousands of her children enslaved to a foreign sex trade, serving the perverted needs of pedophiles from all parts of the world. God does not cause these devastating natural disasters, we do. God is in control of the forces of nature, but we are responsible for the results of the devastation that takes place. God does not send it upon us, it is we who bring it upon ourselves.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).” Let us use these natural disasters as a reminder to turn back to God, live our lives in repentance, and turn away from our arrogance and contempt for the laws of God.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Photo: Archpriest Seraphim Cardoza built the incredible Saint Innocent of Irkustsk Orthodox Church in Rogue River, Oregon. Upon his retirement, Father Seraphim and Matushka Juliana moved to Maryville, Tennessee. His son, Father Joshua Cardoza, is now the rector of the parish.
Monday October 30, 2023 / October 17, 2023
22nd Week after Pentecost. Tone four.
Prophet Hosea (Osee) (820 B.C.).
Monk-martyr Andrew of Crete (767).
New Hieromartyr Neophit and Anatolius priests, Martyrs Hyacinth and Callistus (1918).
New Hieromartyr Archbishop Alexander (Shchukin) of Semipalatinsk (1937).
Venerable Anthony, abbot, of Leokhonov (Novgorod) (1611).
Holy Martyrs and Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian in Cilicia (4th c.), and their brothers Leontius, Anthimus, and Eutropius.
Translation of the relics (898) of St. Lazarus “Of the Four Days” (in the tomb), bishop of Kition on Cyprus.
“Before Birth and After Birth the Virgin” (1827) and “Deliverer” (1889) Icons of the Mother of God.
Martyr Queen Shushaniki (Susanna) of Georgia (475) (Georgia).
St. Joseph the Wonderworker, Catholicos of Georgia (1770) (Georgia).
Holy Martyr Kozman (Georgia).
Martyrs Ethelred and Ethelbert, princes of Kent (England) (ca. 640) (Celtic & British).
Translation of the relics of St. Ethelreda, abbess of Ely. (Celtic & British).
The Scripture Readings
Colossians 2:13-20
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.
20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—
Luke 9:18-22
Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ
18 And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
19 So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.”
20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection
21 And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”