The Morning Offering

Friday

July 8, 2011 / June 25, 2011

4^th Week after Pentecost. Tone two.
Apostles' Fast.

 

By Monastic Charter: Strict Fast (Bread, Vegetables, Fruits)

Virgin-martyr Febronia of Nisibis (304).
Venerable Nikon the Confessor of Optina (1931).
New Hieromartyrs Nicholas and Basil priests (1918).
New Hieromartyr Basil priest (1940).
Prince Peter (1228) and Princess Febronia (tonsured David and Euphrosyne), wonderworkers of Murom.
Venerables Leonis, Libye, and Eutropia of Syria.
Venerable Symeon of Sinai (5th c.).
Venerables Dionysius and Dometius (1380) of the Monastery of the Forerunner (Dionysiou), Mt. Athos (Greek).
New Martyr Procopius of Varna and Mt. Athqs, who suffered at Smyrna (1810) (Greek).
New Martyr George of Attalia (1823) (Greek).
Martyr Gallicianus the Patrician in Egypt (362).
St. Adelbert, archdeacon (740) (Neth.).
St. Theoleptus, metropolitan of Philadelphia (1322).
St. Moluac of Lismore (592) (Celtic & British).

Words from the Abbot:

When others are critical of us or speak ill of us, it seems natural that we would respond in anger. Yet it is far more profitable for our soul if we refrain from defending ourselves. If we choose to see these individuals as our benefactors, placed in our lives by God to teach us humility, we can receive these humiliations for the healing of our soul. The slanderer then becomes a physician, bringing healing where it is most needed.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photos of the Day:

 

Scenes around the monastery.

Scripture Readings for the Day:

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

 ¹ 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.”

Click photo to enlarge.