The Morning Offering

Homelessness

We Are Our Brothers Keeper

With the fiscal cliff hanging over the nation, countless individuals are facing the very real possibility that their extended unemployment payments may be coming to an end. This means that even more individuals and families will be facing homelessness. Through no fault of their own, these people are facing the likelihood they will be forced to live in their cars or on the streets. Many children will have their education put on hold because their parents will no longer be able to keep the children in their neighborhood schools. With a sense of shame, these families will join the countless other Americans who make up the homeless.  

Untold numbers of the homeless are our elderly, forced out on the streets because of medical bills, or loss of other income, during the very years that should have been filled with the warmth and security of their own homes.

An astounding one-third of the homeless population is made up of families, and of the more than 3 million people who are experiencing homelessness, 1.3 million are children. According to national studies, even more Americans are at risk of homelessness because millions of low-income American households pay more that 50 percent of their income on rent when estimates say the figure should be no more than 30 percent. This means that a missed paycheck, the loss of their unemployment benefits, a health emergency, or an unpaid bill, creates a crisis that can push them out of their homes and in to homelessness.

Beginning in the early 1980s, the number of homeless Americans grew dramatically, and the face of homelessness became diverse. It came to include mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, and racial and ethnic minorities. The sense of shame and hopelessness that descends upon these people, should be a shared shame for all of us. They are our brothers and sisters, and they are God's children. Some of them could be our former neighbors, or a cousin we have not seen in years. They could even be us.

We are our brothers keeper, and we must, as a people, and a nation, reach out with everything we have at our disposal to help bring these people back into the safety, security, and warmth, of their own homes. No person should be forced to live without shelter, and no child should be forced to live the life of a homeless person. Every homeless family is our neighbor, our brothers and sisters, and we must not allow them to become invisible to us.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Saturday December 29, 2012 / December 16, 2012
30^th Week after Pentecost. Tone four.
Nativity (St. Philip's Fast). Fish Allowed

Prophet Haggai (Aggaeus) (500 B.C.).
New Hieromartyrs Priest Vladimir (1918)
New Hieromartyrs Arcadius, bishop of Bezhetsk, and Priests Elias, Paul, Theodosius, Vladimir, and Alexander priests, Martyr Makarius (1937).
New Hieromartyr Peter priest (1937).
Venerable Sophia, nun (in the world Solomonia), wife of Grand Duke Basil III (1542).
Martyr Marinus of Rome (283).
Blessed Empress Theophania of Byzantium (893).
St. Memnon, archbishop of Ephesus (5th c.).
St. Nicholas Chrysoberges, patriarch of Constantinople (995).
St. Modestus II, archbishop of Jerusalem (634) (Greek).
Martyrs Promus and Hilarion (Greek).

You can read the life of the saint in green, by click on the name.

THANK YOU, to all of you who have been able to contribute towards the support of the monastery. These difficult times of economic hardship have impacted the monastery, and those of you who have been able to donate, have been our lifeline. May God bless you for your generosity, and kindness.

With love in Christ,  
Abbot Tryphon

Donations can be made directly to the monastery through PayPal, or you may send donations to:

All-Merciful Saviour Monastery
PO Box 2420
Vashon Island, WA 98070-2420 USA

Ephesians 5:1-8

Walk in Love

5 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ² And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
³ But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; ⁴ neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. ⁵ For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ⁶ Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. ⁷ Therefore do not be partakers with them.

Luke 14:1-11

A Man with Dropsy Healed on the Sabbath

14 Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. ² And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. ³ And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
⁴ But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. ⁵ Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” ⁶ And they could not answer Him regarding these things.

Take the Lowly Place

⁷ So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: ⁸ “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; ⁹ and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. ¹¹ For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”