The Morning Offering

Eternity

PLU Students visit Monastery (click to enlarge)

God's Love Consumes All

According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, heaven and hell are not about location, but about relationship. God is everywhere, and He did not create a heaven for some, and a hell for others. If we love God, His fire will be a comforting warmth, but if we choose not to have a relationship with Him, His fire will be as hell fire. We choose how we will experience the presence of God in the afterlife, and since God can not be absent from anywhere, those who have chosen to ignore Him, will, nevertheless, be in His presence for all of eternity.

According to Saint Gregory, Paradise and Hell do not exist from God's point of view, but from man's point of view. It is all about man's choice and condition. According to him, heaven and hell are not two different locations. They are simply two different experiences of the same place.

Everyone will spend eternity in God's presence, but how we experience the Divine Presence will depend upon the condition of our soul. Those who have been transformed by the action and work of the Holy Spirit, will experience God as light and bliss. Those who have rejected God's love will experience it as pain and suffering. For the unbeliever and the unrepentant, their sins will not allow them to enjoy the Presence of God.
 
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Orthodox Christian Fellowship meeting at the UW

Photos: Dr. Brenda Ihssen, a long time friend, accompanied by her students from Pacific Lutheran University, attended Friday's celebration of the Presanctified Liturgy. The second photo was taken when I met with members of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, at the University of Washington on Thursday night.

Saturday April 20, 2013 / April 7, 2013
Fifth Saturday of the Great Lent: Laudation of the Mother of God. Tone four.
Great Lent. Food with Oil
Venerable George the Confessor, bishop of Mitylene (820).
New Hieromartyr Arcadius priest (1933).
Martyr Eudocia (1939).
Venerable Daniel, abbot, of Pereyaslavl-Zalesski (1540).
Martyr Calliopus at Pompeiopolis in Cilicia (304).
Martyrs Rufinus deacon, Aquilina, and 200 soldiers at Sinope (310).
Venerable Serapion of Egypt, monk (5th c.).
Venerable Nilus, abbot of Sora (1508).
Venarable Serapion archbishop of Novgorod.
The Byzantine Icon of the Mother of God.
St. George, patriarch of Jerusalem (807).
St. Gerasimus of Byzantium (1739).
Venerable Leucius, abbot of Volokolamsk (1492).
St. Govan of Cornwall.

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

The Scripture Readings

Hebrews 9:24-28

²⁴ For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; ²⁵ not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— ²⁶ He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ²⁷ And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, ²⁸ so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

Mark 8:27-31

Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ

²⁷ Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?”
²⁸ So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”
²⁹ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”
³⁰ Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.

Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection

³¹ And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.