The Despair of Nihilism

And the grace that flows forth from the Fountain of Life

Some years ago, while flying back to Seattle from Washington, D.C., I sat next to a young marine, who, as we were landing, asked if I would permit him to accompany me to my shuttle, as he “had a personal matter that was weighing heavily” on his heart. While being in our nation’s capital I had already come into contact with many soldiers, all of whom I personally thanked for their service to our country, and all of whom were young enough to be my grandchildren. The young marine reached out to me, not unlike I had with my grandfather, or my pastor, when I was a young man needing the guidance and direction of an older, more seasoned man.

Since my plane arrived too late for a ferry, I spent the night in the Airport Hilton. Being too exhausted to sleep after seven hours in flight, I spent much of the night praying for my fellow citizens, broken by a culture devoid of Christ, and wandering in a wasteland  of a nihilism deprived of hope.

Why have we, as a nation, become an incubator for political divisions and murderous anger turned violent, with rage increasing in alarming ways among our young. How have we, as a people, come to a place where we think we must arm ourselves to the teeth for our own personal survival, and where some think we should even arm college students, so they can be safe in their classrooms? How have we come to a place in our nation’s history where someone would think it important to suggest to the abbot of a monastery that he consider acquiring weapons to protect his monks?

If we think about it, there is a clear reason so many of our nation’s people have given themselves over to the despair of nihilism, and surrendering to a viewpoint where traditional values and beliefs are dismissed as senseless and useless. With tears in my eyes I see young people coming to believe that conditions in the social organization of our world are so bad as to make destruction and violence desirable for its own sake. Many young people are living in such total despair as to believe death is the only way out. Deserving as they are, these young people have never been given the gift of hope.

We have seen whole new generations educated in public schools where Christan morals and values have been forced out under the guise of separation of Church and State. A nation whose young people have been raised without hope, without God, and deprived of the moral, spiritual, and ethical basis that had, in the past, been the very foundation of Western Civilization.

Our problem is not that guns may be banned, but rather that we have removed God from our culture, replacing faith with materialism, greed, and hopelessness. The marked increase in the numbers of people suffering from mental illness is directly related to how we, as a nation, have banned God from our lives. People with no hope, and deprived of the stable influence of a loving faith community, are far more likely to slip into mental illness.

Now is the time we Christians must give witness to the truth that  Christ is the Light of the World, and that true hope for the future is based on the reality of the grace that flows forth from the Fountain of Life. We must become a light in the darkness, that our friends, neighbors, and fellow countrymen see the importance of a life centered in God.

We must boldly lead a revival in our land. Only then will fear for the future be put to rest, and our people once again be filled with love for each other, and hope for a future that is devoid of racism, violence, and poverty. We must send despair back to the abyss from which it came.

With love and blessings,
Abbot Tryphon

Thursday September 17, 2020 / September 4, 2020
15th Week after Pentecost. Tone five.
Hieromartyr Babylas, bishop of Antioch, with Martyrs Urban, Prilidian, and Epolonius, and their mother Christodula (251).
Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses (1531 B.C.).
Uncovering of the relics (1911) of St. Ioasaph, bishop of Belgorod (1754).
Uncovering of the relics (1989) of St. Metrophanes, bishop of Voronezh (1703).
Synaxis of All Saints of Voronezh.
Hieromartyr Parthenius, abbot of Kiziltis Monastery in Crimea (1867).
New Hieromartyrs Paul, John, Nicholas, Nicholas, John, Nicholas, Alexander, Peter and Michael priests, Hieromartyr Stephen, Martyrs Basil, Peter, Stephen and Alexander (1937).
New Hieromartyrs Gregory (Lebedev) Bishop of Shliserburg and Sergius (Druzhinin) Bishop of Narva (1937).
Virgin-Martyr Helen (1942).
Martyr Hermione, daughter of Apostle Philip the Deacon (117).
Martyr Babylas of Nicomedia, and with him 84 children (4th c.).
Martyrs Theodore, Mianus (Ammianus), Julian, Kion (Oceanus), and Centurionus of Nicomedia (305-311).
New Hieromartyr Peter, metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia (1941).
Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “The Unburnt Bush” (1680).
St. Joachim, patriarch of Alexandria.
Venerable Petronius of Egypt (346), disciple of St. Pachomius the Great.
Martyr Charitina of Amisus (Greek).
Martyrs Tathuil and Bebaia of Edessa (2nd c.) (Greek).
Martyr Jerusalem of Berroia (Greek).
Martyrs Theotimus and Theodulus the executioners (Greek).
St. Simeon, abbot and wonderworker of Garesja (1773).
St. Anthimus the Blind, new ascetic of Cephalonia (1782).
Translation of the relics of St. Birinus, bishop of Dorchester-on-Thames and enlighterer of Wessex.
Translation of the relics St. Cuthberg, bishop of Lindisfarne.

The Scripture Readings

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.

Galatians 3:23-4:5

23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Sons and Heirs

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Sons and Heirs Through Christ

4 Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, 2 but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. 3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. 4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Mark 6:30-45

Feeding the Five Thousand

30 Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. 35 When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. 36 Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”

37 But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.”

And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”

38 But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

39 Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties. 41 And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. 42 So they all ate and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish. 44 Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men.

Jesus Walks on the Sea

45 Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away.

Hebrews 11:33-12:2

33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again.

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

The Race of Faith

12 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Luke 12:32-40

32 “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.33 Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The Faithful Servant and the Evil Servant

35 “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. 38 And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.40 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

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.