Today we remember all those faithful Saints who have come before us: “forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, ascetics and every righteous spirit made perfect in faith” (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom). They come from every race, class, region, and time. What they share in common is that through their repentance and cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, they’ve been deified and come to participate in the life of the Holy Trinity. Their life in Christ has made them holy, humble, courageous in living out and witnessing to His truth in this world.
St. Paul says of them in today’s Epistle, they had “trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”
It’s tempting to think of the Saints as some relic of the past; they are not: there are modern Saints in our own generation—St. John the Wonderworker of Shanghai and San Francisco, Parintele Gheorghe of blessed memory, St. Tikhon, St. Raphael of Brooklyn, St. Elizabeth the New—just to name a few from this and the last century. At the same time, we realize that God doesn’t just call a few to be Saints, but all of us. That realization humbles us, reminds us of God’s great and unsurpassed calling and love for us, which helps us persevere in our struggles for healing from our passions and worldly attitudes that would otherwise stand in our way of deeper and continued growth in communion with God. The Lord honors our struggles; through them, we learn to entrust ourselves to Him, to repent and pray more fervently. We take up our cross, denying ourselves so we can learn obedience and humility, without which, we cannot enter God’s near presence. The “great cloud of witnesses” has finished the race of faith before us; their witness spurs us on to likewise live for the glory of God and cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Holy Saints of God, pray for us sinners!
Christ is in our midst!
Fr. Robert+
THIS WEEK AT HOLY ARCHANGELS:
- Monday, June 16, BEGINNING OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL FAST
- Saturday, June 21, 3 p.m., Great Vespers with Confession following
- Sunday, June 22, 9:30 a.m., Hours, 10 am Divine Liturgy Trapeza following Liturgy
- Saturday , June 28 and Sunday, June 29, FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL
Prayer Requests:
- That God may grow our Mission “in spirit and in numbers…”
- For God’s financial provision for our Mission and ACM (Annapolis College Ministry);
- For our Mission that we may find a Choir Director;
- For blessed repose of the newly departed servant Giorgi
- Archpriest George, Archpriest Michael, Priest John, Dcn. Basil, Rdr. John, newly-illumined Simeon Mihai and his godparents, Priest John and Mat. Janette, Benedict, Colette, Mary, Carol, Katherine, James, Daniel, Sarah, Seraphim, Patricia, George, Anne, Ed, Johnson, Jeanette, and Family, Meriam and family imprisoned in the Sudan, the Church in Georgia and Romania as they address the relativism of the West, speaking the truth in love, our suffering Orthodox brethren in Syria, a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.
Troparion (Resurrection) Tone 8
You descended from on high, O Merciful One!
You accepted the three day burial to free us from our sufferings!//
O Lord, our Life and Resurrection, glory to You!
Troparion (from the Pentecostarion) Tone 4
As with fine porphyry and royal purple,
Your Church has been adorned with Your martyr’s blood shed throughout all the world.
She cries to You, O Christ God:
“Send down Your bounties on Your people,//
grant peace to Your habitation and great mercy to our souls!”
Troparion (Holy Archangels) Tone 4
Commanders of the heavenly hosts, // we who are unworthy beseech you:
by your prayers encompass us beneath the wings of your immaterial glory,
and faithfully preserve us who fall down and cry to you://
“Deliver us from all harm, for you are the Commanders of the Powers on high!”
Kontakion(from the Pentecostarion) Tone 8
The universe offers You the God-bearing Martyrs
as the first fruits of creation, O Lord and Creator.
By their prayers keep Your Church, Your habitation, in abiding peace//
through the Theotokos, O most Merciful One!
Kontakion(Holy Archangels) Tone 2
Commanders of God’s armies // and ministers of the divine glory,
princes of the bodiless Angels // and guides of mankind;
ask for what is good for us, and for great mercy,// Supreme Commanders of the Bodiless Hosts.
