Silent Prayer

Going deep into the heart

We all need a good dose of silent prayer each and every day. Finding that perfect place in your home that can become your cave, or prayer closet, will afford you that sacred space wherein you can go deep into the heart and connect with God. That place wherein you can close off your family, your worries, your job, your distractions, and go deep into your heart wherein you will find the peace that comes from Christ.

The Jesus Prayer is the perfect prayer, for it is a prayer of adoration and praise, and a prayer that proclaims that Jesus is Lord and, as God, can grand mercy upon you. The simple prayer which invokes the Holy Name of Jesus can transform your life, and take you into the very Heart of God. This prayer is known as the Prayer of the Heart for the very reason that it is of the heart.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Said with the aid of a Prayer Rope (thus bringing your body into the action of the prayer), this prayer accomplishes Saint Paul’s admonition that we should “pray always”. It is a prayer that takes you out of yourself and into communion with Christ. It is a prayer that can change your life because through this prayer you can taste the presence of Christ beside you.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photo: At the request of Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco, and with the blessing of the Synod of Bishops, I was awarded the palitsa, a diamond-shaped vestment that is always worn on the right side.

Asking for your prayers

As many of you know, the whole state of Washington is under an gubernatorial emergency degree. There are firefighters here literally from every Canadian province plus every state in the union (except Hawaii.) Hundreds of active-duty military members have been deployed fighting the fires and the national guard has been mobilized. The governor is now even asking for citizen volunteers. We have had a number of professional firefighters killed, so this is raising some concern about the wisdom of using amateurs. This photo shows the extent of the smoke that has overcome our island community, and the monastery.

Vashon Island’s forests are drier than they’ve ever been, and the whole State of Washington is suffering from its worst drought in history. Although we have made a defensible parameter around our monastery, we know we are in danger of losing everything we’ve worked hard for thirty years to build. The smell of smoke in the air and the particulate matter in the atmosphere has been making for some “blood red” sunrises and sunsets (as well as a respiratory problems emergency warning statewide). We have served the Church’s special prayers for those suffering the ravages of fire and for the safety of firefighters, and are asking for prayers for the ending of this drought. Please keep our local people and our firefighters in your prayers.

Monday August 24, 2015 / August 11, 2015

13th Week after Pentecost. Tone three.
Dormition (Theotokos) Fast. By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Afterfeast of the Transfiguration.
Holy Martyr and Archdeacon Euplus of Catania (304).
Martyrs Basil and Theodore of the Kiev Caves (1098).
Venerable Theodore (in monasticism Theodosius) of the Kiev Caves, prince of Ostrog (1483).
Virgin-martyr Susanna and those with her: Martyrs Gaius, pope of Rome; presbyter Gabinus, his brother and father of Susanna; Maximus, Claudius and his wife, Praepedigna, and their sons Alexander and Cutias (295).
St. Niphon, patriarch of Constantinople (Mt. Athos) (1515).
Venerable Passarion of Palestine.
St. Blaan, bishop of Bute (Dunblane), Scotland (590) (Celtic & British).
Commemoration of the Miracle (1816) of St. Spyridon (348) on Kerkyra (Corfu) with the Hagarenes (Greek).
New Martyrs Anastasius of Asomaton in Asia Minor and Demetrius of Lesbos (1816) (Greek).
St. Taurinus, first bishop of Evreux, Gaul (2nd c.).
St. John, recluse of Svyatogorsk Monastery (1867).
Martyrs Neophytus, Zeno, Gaius, Mark, Macarius, and Gaianus (Greek).

Scripture Readings

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

7 But as you abound in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us—see that you abound in this grace also.

Christ Our Pattern

8 I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

10 And in this I give advice: It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago; 11 but now you also must complete the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. 12 For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.

13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; 14 but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack—that there may be equality. 15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”

Mark 3:6-12

6 Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.

A Great Multitude Follows Jesus

7 But Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea. And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him. 9 So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him. 10 For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him. 11 And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.