Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians [§ 212].

5 ¹¹Brethren, if I yet proclaim circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the Cross hath been done away. ¹²Would that those unsettling you make themselves even eunuchs!

¹³For, brethren, ye were called to freedom; only use not the freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but by love be serving as slaves to one another. ¹⁴For the whole law is fulfilled in one utterance, in this: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself [Lev. 19:18].” ¹⁵But if ye bite and devour one another, be taking heed that ye be not consumed by one another.

¹⁶But I say, be walking in the Spirit, and in no wise shall ye fulfill the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; and these are opposed to one another, that whatsoever ye wish, ye do not those things. ¹⁸But if ye are being led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. ¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, ²⁰idolatry, use of drugs, potions or spells, enmities, strifes, jealousies, fits of anger, intrigues, divisions, heresies, ²¹envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revellings, and things like to these; of which I tell you beforehand, even as I also said previously, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 28]. At that time:

7 ⁵The Pharisees and the scribes questioned Jesus, “Why do Thy disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?” ⁶And He answered and said to them, “Well did Esaias prophesy concerning you, the hypocrites, as it hath been written: ‘This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. ⁷“‘And in vain they revere Me, teaching as precepts the commandments of men [Is. 29:13].’ ⁸“For having left the commandment of God, ye keep on holding the tradition of men—dippings of pitchers and cups, and many other such like things ye do.” ⁹And He was saying to them, “Ye set at nought altogether the commandment of God, that ye might keep your own tradition. ¹⁰“For Moses said, ‘Be honoring thy father and thy mother [Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16]’; and, ‘The one who speaketh evil of father or mother, let him come to an end by death [cf. Ex. 21:16; Lev. 20:9].’ ¹¹“But ye say, ‘If a man should say to his father or his mother, “Whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me is Corban”’ (that is, a votive gift); ¹²“then ye no longer permit him to do anything for his father or for his mother, ¹³“because ye invalidated the word of God by your tradition which ye delivered; and many such like things ye do.” ¹⁴And after He called to Himself all the crowd, He was saying to them, “Be ye hearing Me, everyone, and understanding: ¹⁵“There is nothing from outside the man, when it entereth into him, which is able to defile him; but the things which go out from him, those are the things which defile the man. ¹⁶“If anyone hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Afterfeast of the Nativity, and the Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, and Nymphodora.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

September 23rd – Civil Calendar
September 10th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora and Nymphodora.

They were three sisters from some place in Asian Bithynia. Brought up in a Christian spirit, they withdrew from the city into the desert, desiring to lift up their minds to God and free themselves from the illusory world, and thus to live their lives with purity and virginity as true brides of Christ. They gave themselves to fasting, prayer and toil, and God adorned them with the gift of wonder-working. When people began to bring the sick to them for healing, they became known against their will. A certain governor, Fronton, heard of them and brought them to trial. Seeing them, the governor was amazed at their beauty, for, although they were nuns and their bodies were withered, their faces were radiant, illumined by an inner peace and the grace of God. The governor at first flattered them and promised to send them to the emperor, who would give them in marriage to his nobles, but when he realized that his flattery and promises were having no effect on these brides of Christ the Lord, he ordered that Menodora be put to torture and her sisters be thrown into prison. After harsh torture, the governor cried to Menodora, all wounded and covered in blood: ‘Offer sacrifice to the gods!’ To this the holy martyr replied: ‘Don’t you see that I am doing nothing but offering myself in sacrifice to my God?’ When she expired under torture, the governor brought out her two sisters and stood them beside Menodora’s dead body, and pointing to it, urged them to deny Christ. As they remained steadfast, he tortured them to death. At that, a thunderbolt fell from the sky and killed the soulless Fronton and his servants. Christians buried the bodies of these holy martyrs, who suffered some time between 305 and 311, in the time of Galerius, and entered into rest in the kingdom of Christ.

2. St. Pulcheria the Empress.

Daughter of the Emperor Arkadios, she vowed to remain in perpetual virginity, and as an earnest of this vow, had a table of gold and precious stones made for the cathedral. She reigned together with her brother Theodosios the Younger, and was greatly zealous for the Orthodox Faith. It was at her instigation that the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus was summoned, which condemned the Nestorian heresy. She built the famous church of the Mother of God at Vlachernai in Constantinople. After Theodosios’ death, she married Marcian, who was chosen as emperor, and lived with him as a brother. It was she who found the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. She entered into rest in the Lord on September 10th, 453, at the age of fifty-five.

3. Ss. Apollos, Lucius and Clement.

Apostles among the Seventy: Apollos (Acts 18:24-25) was bishop in Smyrna before St. Polycarp. St. Lucius (Rom. 16:21) was bishop in Laodicea and St. Clement was bishop in Sardis.

4. The Three Holy Women of Constantinople.

A noblewoman of Constantinople with her two handmaids, they scorned the vanity of the world and withdrew to solitude, where, after eleven years of asceticism, they entered into rest in the Lord.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The examples of courage and endurance that are given by the Christian martyrs—thousand upon thousand of them—shine with radiant glory through every page of the history of the Christian Church. But, as the examples of voluntary martyrs are given us to marvel at, so also (and no less) are the examples of the Christian ascetics, known and unknown, for asceticism is nothing other than a long-drawn-out martyrdom. Paul, Bishop of Monemvasia, has given to posterity the instructive example of a group of women ascetics. While he was still a layman and a tax-collector, he happened to stay in a monastery. Seeing ravens set about the fruit trees, stealing the fruit and carrying it off, he was curious, and together with the monks, set off after them to see where they were carrying the fruit. Going thus, they came to an impenetrable forest, into the depths of which the ravens disappeared, left their stolen fruit and quickly returned. Exploring, they found a cave, and in it, three nuns. The eldest of them told him of their life: how she had been a Constantinopolitan noblewoman whose husband had died and whom another noble had wanted to take by force as his wife. But she had decided, after her husband’s death, that she would spend the rest of her life in virginity, and had therefore given her goods away to the poor, and with her two handmaids, had fled to this remote spot. They had spent eleven years there in fasting and prayer, seeing no one and seen of no one but God. He, in His providence, had arranged for birds to bring them fruit to eat. They then begged the abbot to bring them holy Communion. When they had received Communion, three days later, all three holy women entered into rest, and the monks buried them.

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.