Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Eleventh Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 123]. Brethren:

1 ³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, ⁵that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all utterance and all knowledge, ⁶even as the testimony of the Christ was confirmed in you, ⁷so as to not lack in even one gift of grace, while ye eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹Faithful is God, by Whom ye were called into the communion of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 78]. At that time:

19 ³The Pharisees came to Jesus, putting Him to the test and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” ⁴And He answered and said to them, “Ye read, did ye not, that the One Who made them from the beginning ‘made them male and female [Gen. 1:27],’ ⁵“and said, ‘On account of this a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be into one flesh [Gen. 2:24]’? ⁶“Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God yoked together, let not man separate.” ⁷They say to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to divorce her?” ⁸He saith to them, “Moses, in view of your hard-heartedness, permitted you to divorce your wives; but it hath not been so from the beginning. ⁹“And I say to you, that whosoever shall divorce his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and he who marrieth her who hath been divorced, committeth adultery.” ¹⁰His disciples say to Him, “If the case of the man is so with the wife, it is not expedient to marry.” ¹¹But He said to them, “Not all find room for this saying, but those to whom it hath been given: ¹²“for there are eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. The one who is able to find room for it, let him make room.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the return of the relics of the holy Apostle Bartholomew from Anastasiopolis to Lipari, and the holy Apostle Titus of the Seventy, Bishop of Crete.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to Saint Titus [§ 300].

For Gk. usage, see Tit. 1:1-5, 2:15-3:2, 12-15; for Sl. usage, see Tit. 1:1-4, 2:15-3:3, 12, 13, 15.

1 ¹Paul, a slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God’s elect, and full knowledge of the truth which is according to piety, ²in the hope of eternal life, which the God, Who cannot lie, Himself promised before the times of the ages, ³but manifested in His own seasons His word in a proclamation, which I was entrusted with, according to the command of God our Savior; ⁴to Titus, my genuine child according to the common faith: grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

⁵For this cause I left thee behind in Crete, in order that thou shouldest set right the things wanting, and ordain presbyters in every city, as I ordered thee....

2 ¹⁵These things be speaking and exhorting and reproving with all command; let no one despise thee.

3 ¹Be reminding them to submit themselves to rulers and authorities, to obey a superior, to be ready for every good work, ²to speak evil of no one, to not be contentious, but equitable, showing forth meekness toward all men. ³For we also were once without understanding, disobedient, deceived, slaving for various desires and pleasures, passing life in wickedness and envy, hateful, hating one another....

¹²Whenever I should send Artemas to thee, or Tychikos, hasten to come to me in Nicopolis, for I have decided to winter there. ¹³Send forth with haste Zenas the lawyer and Apollos, in order that nothing may be lacking to them. ¹⁴And let ours also be learning to set before themselves good works for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful.

¹⁵All those with me salute thee. Greet those who love us in faith.

Grace be with you all. Amen.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 11]. The Lord said to His disciples:

5 ¹⁴“Ye are the light of the world. A city situated on the top of a mountain cannot be hid. ¹⁵“Nor do they light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lampstand, and it giveth light to all those in the house. ¹⁶“Thus, let your light shine before men, that they might see your good works, and might glorify your Father Who is in the heavens.

¹⁷“Do not begin to think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I came not to abolish, but to fulfill. ¹⁸“For verily I say to you, until the heaven and the earth shall have passed away, one iota or one tittle in no wise shall pass away from the law, until all shall have taken place. ¹⁹“Whosoever then shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall do and teach them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

September 7th – Civil Calendar
August 25th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostle Bartholomew.

Today is the commemoration of the translation of St. Bartholomew’s relics, while his main feast falls on June 11th. When this great apostle was crucified in Ourbanopolis in Armenia, Christians took his body and buried it in a leaden coffin. When numerous miracles had been wrought over the apostle’s grave, especially healings of the sick—which led to an increase in the number of Christians—the pagans took the coffin containing Bartholomew’s relics and cast it into the sea. At the same time, they threw in four other coffins with the relics of four martyrs: Papian, Lucian, Gregory and Acacius. By God’s providence, the coffins did not sink, but floated, carried by the waves, to various places: Acacius’ to the city of Askalon, Gregory’s to Calabria, Lucian’s to Messina, Papian’s to another place in Sicily and Bartholomew’s to the island of Lipara. By divine revelation, the Bishop of Lipara, Agathon, learned of the approach to Lipara of the relics of St. Bartholomew. Agathon, with his clergy and people, went out to the shore and awaited the coffin with great joy. On that occasion, many of the sick were healed by the holy apostle’s relics. They were placed in the church of St. Bartholomew and lay there until the time of Theophilus the Iconoclast (about 839), then, when the Moslems threatened the Liparites, the apostle’s relics were taken to the town of Benevento. Thus God glorified His apostle by miracles, both during his lifetime and after his death.

2. The Holy Apostle Titus.

One of the Seventy, he was born in Crete and educated in Greek philosophy and poetry. Led by a dream, he read the Prophet Isaias and came to doubt all Hellenic learning. Hearing of Christ the Lord, he went to Jerusalem with some other Cretans, and himself heard the words of the Savior and saw His mighty works. His youthful heart clave utterly to Christ. He was later baptized by the Apostle Paul, whom he served in the works of the Gospel as a son serves his father. Paul loved Titus so greatly that he sometimes called him his son (Titus 1:4), and sometimes his brother (II Cor. 12:18). Titus travelled widely with the great apostle of the nations, and was by him made Bishop of Crete. At the time of Paul’s suffering in Rome, Titus was there, and buried the body of his teacher and spiritual father. He then returned to Crete, where he had great success in baptising the pagans, and wisely governed the Church to great old age. He entered into rest at the age of ninety-four.

3. The Holy Confessors of Edessa.

They suffered greatly in imprisonment and exile for the Orthodox Faith in the time of the Emperor Valens, who held the Arian heresy. They were freed under the Emperor Theodosios.

4. St. Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople.

He governed the Church wisely from 536 to 552. Before that, he ran the Home of St. Sampson for the poor and needy (see June 27th). Pope Agapetus, who had come to Constantinople at that time to oppose and depose the heretical Patriarch Anthimos, participated in Menas’ consecration as bishop there. It is said that the following marvel came to pass in Constantinople in the time of Patriarch Menas: a Jewish boy went to church with his friends, and following their example, received holy Communion. The boy’s father, a glassblower, when he heard of his son’s action, seized him and threw him into the red-hot kiln that he had prepared for the firing of glass. The boy remained shut in this kiln for three days and nights, but when the kiln was opened, he was found alive and unharmed, preserved by God’s providence.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The superhuman courage of our Christian forbears and their readiness to undergo all manner of sufferings and voluntary death for Christ was a source of terror to their torturers. The Emperor Maximian, a fierce and shameless persecutor of Christians, commanded his proconsul in Antioch to set St. Andrew Stratelates free from prison, for fear that the people, who had more respect for Andrew than for the emperor, would revolt. The Emperor Valens commanded his eparch in Edessa to slay all the Christians who were opposed to Arius. The eparch had more human compassion than the emperor, and warned the Christians secretly by night not to leave the city the following day for the fields where they usually held their services (for the Arians had seized all the churches), or they would be slaughtered. Heedless of this warning, the Christians all went to the field in the morning with great joy, rejoicing that they would suffer for the true Faith. The eparch, coming out of the city with his soldiers, saw a Christian woman with a child in her arms, hurrying past the soldiers near the field. The eparch said to her: ‘Have you not heard that the eparch is coming with all his soldiers, to kill everyone he finds?’ The woman replied: ‘I have; and that is why I’m hurrying to die for Christ with the others.’ The eparch continued: ‘But why are you taking that child with you?’ The woman replied: ‘I want my child to be made worthy of martyrdom along with me.’ Seeing and hearing this, the eparch returned in fear to the city and informed the emperor. The emperor was filled with fear, and withdrew his order to massacre.

Daily Scripture Readings taken from The Orthodox New Testament, translated and published by Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, copyright © 2000, used with permission, all rights reserved.

Daily Prologue Readings taken from The Prologue of Ochrid, by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, translated by Mother Maria, published by Lazarica Press, Birmingham, England, copyright © 1985, all rights reserved. Edited by Dormition Skete.