Being a Member of the Body of Christ
Each and every time we gather together to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, we are not simply commemorating an event that happened almost two thousand years ago. We are not simply commemorating the Last Supper, when Christ shared a meal with His disciples. When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist, we are rejoining an event already in progress. Each and every Liturgy celebrated is bound together with an event already having taken place. Each Liturgy is not celebrated anew, for only one Eucharistic banquet was celebrated, and that was when Our Lord offered up the first Mystical Supper, together with his disciples. Our offering is a rejoining of ourselves to that very moment in time, when Christ is with His disciples.
We, at the moment of the Eucharistic offering, are made holy, just as the words spoken by the priest suggest, “holy things for the holy”. We are made a holy people, set apart from the world. We are a people brought together in Christ, no longer apart and alone. We rejoin Christ, and are made as One Body, which is the Church. The offering of the bread and wine which has been set forth for the Eucharistic offering, is to become the Body of Christ (the Church) prepared to BE the Body of Christ. We faithful are united together in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, with the Eucharistic banquet that is ongoing in Paradise. We are brought together with all the saints that have gone on before us, united together as One Body.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Photo: An island Orthodox Christian, Christopher Odell, took this photo from the high place of the monastery,
Saturday November 26, 2022 / November 13, 2022
24th Week after Pentecost. Tone six.
St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople (407).
Martyrs Antoninus, Nicephorus, and Germanus of Caesarea in Palestine (308).
Martyr Manetha of Caesarea in Palestine (308).
New Martyr Damascene of Mt. Athos (1681).
St. Bricius, bishop of Tours (444) and St. Quintianus, bishop of Clermont (525) (Gaul).
St. Euphrasius, bishop of Clermont (515) (Gaul).
St. Leonien of Vienne (518) (Gaul).
The Scripture Readings
John 10:1-9
Jesus the True Shepherd
10 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.
Jesus the Good Shepherd
7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
Hebrews 7:26-8:2
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
The New Priestly Service
8 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
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.