THE GIFT OF LOVE

We Must Pass on the Gift of Love

My father was a golf pro in Spokane, Washington, during my grade and early middle school years, and the country club was the center of our family’s social life. My brother, Dwayne, and I used to play an average of 18 to 36 holes of golf every day, during the summer months (when we weren’t fly fishing in the Spokane River). Our whole family golfed together, although my mother’s primary love was music. She was a church organist and choir director, and eventually became a piano and organ teacher.

My first job was to fill the coin operated water cooler with bottles of soda pop. When we moved from Spokane, Washington, to Sandpoint, Idaho, where my dad became the pro for a small country club, I took on my second job, at the age of fifteen, driving the large tractor that was used to cut the grass for the fairways. Those early years were wonderful, and I often think of how lucky I was to have been blessed with such wonderful, loving, parents.

Our home in Sandpoint, was on the lake, with views of forested mountains off in the distance. Is it any wonder I am so happy living on an island, surrounded by forest, for the forests and lakes of Northern Idaho, were so prominent a part of the environment of my youth.

I was fortunate to have had a close relationship with both my father and mother during the last years of their lives. As an adult, I was gifted with enough time to have let both my parents know how much I loved them, and how I was a product of both their lives. I was able to tell my dad that I saw much of him within myself. His humor, comfortableness with all kinds of people, joy of life, love of history, and, even his size (he was a big man), have been inherited by me, his son.

My mother’s love of music, architecture and interior design, are also a part of who I’ve become, leaving me with the skills to work with our architect on the design of this monastery, and to personally design all the interiors of our monastic buildings. I am clearly the inheritor of the best that my parents displayed in their lives, and I will forever be grateful to them.

Yet, the most important gift I received from my parents was the gift of love. They loved me, and demonstrated their love for me throughout their lives. They also showed me how to love others, and that ability to be willing to be open to love, and to demonstrate love, eventually allowed me to love God. It was from my parents that I discovered that God was not simply there as a cosmic problem solver, or gift giver, or but was, like them, One Who loved me. God, like my parents, first loved me, and the lessons of love that I learned from my parents, enabled me to be open to the love of God. In turn, the gift of love that came from my parents allowed me to see God as not my own private possession, but One Whom I wanted to share with others.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photo: Me and my mother, standing next to North Monroe Street in Spokane, Washington, near my maternal grandmother’s home.

Tuesday September 7, 2021 / August 25, 2021
12th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Return of the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew from Anastasiopolis to Lipari (6th c.).
Holy Apostle Titus of the Seventy (1st c.).
Hieromartyr Moses (1931).
New Hieromartyr priest Vladimir Moschansky (1938).
Sts. Barses and Eulogius (386), bishops of Edessa, and St. Protogenes, bishop of Carrhae (4th c.), confessors.
St. Menas, patriarch of Constantinople (6th c.).
St. John the Cappadocian (520) and St. Epiphanius (535), patriarchs of Constantinople.
Synaxis of Hierarchs of Crete: Andrew the Wonderworker; Cyril, bishop of Gortyna; and Eumenius, bishop of Rome. (Greek).
St. Aredius of Limousin (591) (Gaul).
St. Gregory of Utrecht (775) (Neth.).
Translation of the relics of St. Hilda of Whitby (680) (Celtic & British).
St. Ebba the Elder, abbess of Coldingham, Northumbria, England (683) (Celtic & British).

The Scripture Readings

2 Corinthians 5:15-21

15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Mark 1:16-22

Four Fishermen Called as Disciples

16 And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

19 When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. 20 And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.

Jesus Casts Out an Unclean Spirit

21 Then they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught. 22 And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Titus 1:1-4

Greeting

1 Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, 3 but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior;

4 To Titus, a true son in our common faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

Titus 2:15-3:3

15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

Graces of the Heirs of Grace

3 Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. 3 For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

Titus 3:12-13

Final Messages

12 When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Send Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey with haste, that they may lack nothing.

Titus 3:15

Farewell

15 All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith.

Grace be with you all. Amen.

Matthew 5:14-19

14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Christ Fulfills the Law

17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.