When we’re bitter, nursing a grudge, we turn someone else’s sin into our own sin and it eats at us like some spiritual cancer; if unchecked, it grows, infecting our souls, and destroys our faith as it alters our sense of reality. We cannot be close to God, we cannot maintain and grow our relationship and communion with God, while holding onto bitterness, while withholding forgiveness. For this reason, God in His great love for us, desires our freedom from this spiritual cancer, desires our healing from bitterness, grudges, enmity, and strife. When St. Peter asks the Lord in today’s Gospel how many times we must forgive, thinking maybe seven times would be sufficient, the Lord replies, ”seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22), symbolic of an infinite sum. The premise of this infinite forgiveness comes from God, Who grants forgiveness to us over and over and over again. And while we ourselves sin and then fight to forgive those who wrong us, God does not sin and yet He forgives us for our sins against Him and others. While it often involves struggle and much prayer from the heart on our part, by His Holy Spirit, God can bring healing to our lives by enabling us to forgive as we have been forgiven, thereby freeing us from our enslavement to bitterness and enmity, and restoring our souls to health.
Intercede for us Holy Theotokos! In Christ’s love,
Fr. Robert+
This week at Holy Archangels:
• Wednesday, Aug. 22, 7 p.m., Continuing Bible Study on the Gospel of St. John, Location: St. John’s Boathouse. Please join us!
• Saturday, Aug. 25, 6 p.m., Great Vespers with the Matins Gospel. Confession following.
• Sunday, Aug 26, 9:30 Hours and Divine Liturgy followed by Trapeza.
Prayer Requests:
➢ Please pray the hand-maiden of God, Mihaela, and her new baby, Maria
➢ Please pray for Azariah (Brian) as he looks for a teaching position.
➢ Please pray for our Mission that we may find a full-time Choir Director.
➢ Please pray for Fr. Robert and family as they look to sell their house and move to Annapolis. Please also pray for a safe delivery of their baby boy.
➢ For healing for Marion’s sister, Carol
Troparion (Resurrection) Tone 2
When You descended to death, O Life Immortal,
You destroyed hell with the splendor of Your Godhead.
And when from the depths You raised the dead,
all the powers of heaven cried out://
“O Giver of life, Christ our God, glory to You!”
Troparion (Dormition) Tone 1
In giving birth you preserved your virginity.
In falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos.
You were translated to life O Mother of Life,
and by your prayers you deliver our souls from death.
Troparion (Marty Andrew) Tone 5
You renounced the glory of earthly rank
and inherited the Kingdom of Heaven;
you adorned your incorruptible crown as with beautiful stones.
You led an army of martyrs to Christ,
and with the Angels in the never-fading light
you found Christ the never-setting Sun.
Together with those who suffered with you,
holy General Andrew,//
ever pray to Him that He may save our souls!
Kontakion (Resurrection) Tone 2
Hell became afraid, O almighty Savior,
seeing the miracle of Your Resurrection from the tomb!
The dead arose! Creation, with Adam, beheld this and rejoiced with You,//
and the world, my Savior, praises You forever.
Kontakion (Martyr Andrew )Tone 2
Standing before the Lord in prayer like a star near the sun,
you were filled with ineffable joy beholding your desire: the treasure of the Kingdom.
You sing without ceasing to the immortal King
together with the Angels throughout the ages.//
With them, General Andrew, unceasingly pray for us all!
Kontakion (Dormition) Tone 2
Neither the tomb, nor death, could hold the Theotokos,
who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions.
For being the Mother of Life,//
she was translated to life by the One Who dwelt in her virginal womb.
