The Morning Offering

Holiday Conflict

 Let Christ increase while we decrease

As we enter into the holiday season the stress level of many family members increases, leading to conflict. Worries about the economy, interaction with certain family members who are not usually a part of our every day lives, holiday shopping obligations, all can lead to increased tension between members of families. Husbands and wives can find themselves arguing about petty things, children can become disobedient, and family arguments can overwhelm the peace that should reign during the holy season of the Fast and the upcoming Nativity celebrations.

Sometimes one little remark of a visiting relative can open old wounds, leading to a family argument. Adult children can find themselves acting like angry teenagers with one critical word from  a visiting parent, leading to a meltdown and ruining a family dinner.

It is during the holiday season that you need to be vigilant, guarding your words and keeping your emotions intact. The holiday season should be a time when you work harder at keeping the peace, guarding your heart, and letting Christ rule your words and thoughts. Don't let the celebration of the birth of our salvation be trampled upon by the ego. Make sure Christ is glorified in your speech, your actions, and your thoughts. Make this season one in which you treat all your family members, friends, and coworkers with extra respect and love. Let Christ increase in our hearts, as we make ourselves decrease.

Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Saturday November 26, 2011 / November 13, 2011

24^th Week after Pentecost. Tone six.

St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (407).
Martyrs Antoninus, Nicephorus, and Germanus of Caesarea in Palestine (308).
Martyr Manetha of Caesarea in Palestine (308).
New Martyr Damascene of Mt. Athos (1681).
St. Bricius, bishop of Tours (444) and St. Quintianus, bishop of Clermont (525) (Gaul).
St. Euphrasius, bishop of Clermont (515) (Gaul).
St. Leonien of Vienne (518) (Gaul).

Hebrews 7:26-8:2

 

²⁶ For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who isholy, 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.

Hebrews 8

 

The New Priestly Service

 ¹ 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.