The Jesus Prayer

Taste the presence of Christ beside you

We all need silent prayer every day, and finding the perfect place in our home that can become our cave, or prayer closet, affords us that sacred space where we can go deep into our heart and connect with God. That place where we can close off our family, our worries, our job, our distractions, and find the peace that comes from Christ.

The Jesus Prayer is the perfect prayer to recite in that house cave, for it is a prayer of adoration and praise, and a prayer that proclaims that Jesus is Lord, and as God, can bestow His mercy upon us. The simple prayer which invokes the Holy Name of Jesus can transform our life, and take us into the very Heart of God. This prayer is known as the Prayer of the Heart for the very reason that it takes place in 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

Sunday December 4, 2016 / November 21, 2016
24th Sunday after Pentecost. Tone seven.
Nativity (St. Philip’s Fast). Fish Allowed

The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple.

Venerable Columbanus of Bobbio, abbot and founder of Luxeuil Abbey (Gaul) (615) (Celtic & British).
New Martyrs Priest Alexander Khotovitsky of New York (1937), and Priest Alexis Benemansky of Tver (1937).
Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Everlasting Hope”.

Scripture Readings

Ephesians 2:14-22

Christ Our Peace

14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

Christ Our Cornerstone

19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Luke 12:16-21

16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”