With a Grateful Heart

I thank you all so very much!

Yesterday I met with my cardiologist, Dr. Peter Demopulos (pictured), of Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and received good news. Dr. Demopulos has given me a clean bill of health. It seems that my heart is now functioning within all the parameters of a normal heart. I am grateful for all the care I received in the cardiology unit of Swedish, from the 16th through the 22nd of March, and for Dr. Demopulos having gone the extra mile to get me back on track. I give thanks to God for the mercy shown me, His unworthy servant, and for the intercessory prayers of the Holy Virgin, as well as those of Saint John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco. I am also grateful for the prayers offered up by Archbishop Kyrill, and all my brother priests. Thanks, also, to Abbess Markella and the nuns of The Life Giving Spring Greek Orthodox Monastery in Dunlap, CA., and for the prayers of my monastic brothers, all my spiritual children, and our countless friends and benefactors who took the time to ask for God’s mercy and healing for this old monk’s heart. Thank you all so very much!

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photos: Our new icon of Saint John the Wonderworker, together with his holy relic, graces our monastery’s temple. Saint John is the Patron Saint of All-Merciful Saviour Monastery. Also included are interior photos of our temple, and a photo of my cardiologist, Dr. Peter Demopulos. Please remember Dr. Demopulos in your holy prayers.

Friday July 15, 2016 / July 2, 2016
4th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Fast. Food with Oil

The Placing of the Honorable Robe of the Most Holy Theotokos at Blachernae (5th c.).
St. Photius, metropolitan of Kiev (1431).
St. Juvenal, patriarch of Jerusalem (458).
“Pozai” (17th c.), “Theodotiev” (1487) and “Akhtyr” (1739) Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos.
St. Juvenal, protomartyr of America and Alaska (1796).
Right-believing King Stephen the Great of Moldavia (1504) (Romania).
St. Monegunde of Chartres (530) (Gaul).
New Martyr Lampros of Makri (1835) (Greek).
Uncovering of the relics (2003) of New Hieromartyr Priest Sergius Florinsky of Rakvere, Estonia (1918).
Feast of the Robe of the Most Holy Theotokos (Georgia).
St. Oudoceus, bishop of Llandaff.
St. Swithun, bishop of Winchester.

Scripture Readings

Romans 11:25-36

25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. 32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
35 “Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”

36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

Matthew 12:1-8

Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”