Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

The Saturday of the Third Week of the Great Fast

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 325]. Brethren:

10 ³²Remind yourselves of the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great contest of sufferings: ³³partly, being made a show of both by reproaches and affliction; and partly, having become partners of those who conducted themselves thus. ³⁴For ye also sympathized with those in bonds and ye yourselves accepted the seizure of your possessions with joy, knowing in yourselves that ye have in the heavens a better and abiding possession. ³⁵Do not begin therefore to cast away your boldness which hath great recompense. ³⁶For ye have need of patience, that, after ye do the will of God, ye might receive for yourselves the promise. ³⁷“For yet a very little while, the One Who cometh will come, and will not delay [cf. Hab. 2:3]. ³⁸“Now the just shall live by faith; and if one should draw himself back, My soul hath no pleasure in him [cf. Hab. 2:4].”

Another Reading for Saturday of the Third Week of the Great Fast in Commemoration of the Departed

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians [§ 270].

4 ¹³Brethren, we do not wish you to be ignorant concerning those who have fallen asleep, that ye may not be grieving, even as the rest who have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and is risen, so also those who fell asleep through Jesus will God bring with Him. ¹⁵For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we the living, the ones remaining over until the coming of the Lord, in no wise shall precede those who fell asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout of command, with a voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. ¹⁷Then we the living, the ones remaining over, shall be carried off together with them in clouds to a meeting of the Lord in the air, and so shall we always be with the Lord.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 8]. At that time:

2 ¹⁴As Jesus passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphæos, sitting at the custom-house, and saith to him, “Follow thou Me.” And he rose up and followed Him. ¹⁵And it came to pass, as He was reclining at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners also were reclining together at table with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. ¹⁶And after the scribes and the Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they were saying to His disciples, “Why is it that He eateth and drinketh with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷And Jesus, having heard it, saith to them, “They who are strong have no need of a physician, but they who are ill; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Commemoration of the Departed

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 16]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

5 ²⁴“Verily, verily, I say to you, that the one who heareth My word and believeth the One Who sent Me hath everlasting life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed over out of death into life. ²⁵“Verily, verily, I say to you, that an hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live. ²⁶“For even as the Father hath life in Himself, so He also gave to the Son to have life in Himself, ²⁷“and He also gave to Him authority to execute judgment. That He is Son of Man, ²⁸“cease marvelling at this; for an hour is coming in which all those in the graves shall hear His voice, ²⁹“and shall go forth—they who did good things to a resurrection of life, but they who practised bad things to a resurrection of condemnation. ³⁰“I am not able to do anything of Myself. Even as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the One Who sent Me, the Father.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Martyr Evdokia of Heliopolis.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

March 14th – Civil Calendar
March 1st – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Mother, the Martyr Evdokia (Eudocia).

Living in Heliopolis, a city of Phoenicia, during the reign of Trajan, she was at first a great harlot, then a penitent, a nun and finally a martyr. She gained great wealth from her harlotry. The reversal of her life was brought about unintentionally through the providence of God by an elderly monk, Germanos. Coming to Heliopolis in the course of his work, Germanos stayed at the house of a Christian woman whose home abutted onto Evdokia’s. When at night he began, as was his monastic custom, to read the Psalter and a book on the Dreadful Judgement, Evdokia heard him and stood listening attentively to his every word until the end. Fear and dread took such hold on her that she remained awake until daybreak. As soon as it was dawn, she sent a servant to beg that monk to come to her. Germanos came and they began a long conversation on that which the old monk had been reading the previous night, and especially on faith and salvation. The result of these discussions was that Evdokia asked the local bishop to baptize her. After her Baptism, she gave all her goods to the church to be distributed to the poor, dismissed her servants and slaves, and retired to a women’s monastery. She so devoted herself to the monastic life—to obedience, patience, vigils, prayer and fasting—that after thirteen months she was chosen as abbess. She lived fifty-six years in the monastery and was worthy in the eyes of God to be given the gift of raising the dead. When a persecution of Christians arose under the governor, Vincent, holy Evdokia was beheaded. Here is a wonderful example of how a vessel of uncleanness can be purified, sanctified and filled with a precious, heavenly fragrance by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

2. Our Holy Father Agapios.

A novice with an elder near the monastery of Vatopedi, he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave in Magnesia. After twelve years he was miraculously freed and returned to Vatopedi by the aid of the most holy Mother of God. He baptized his former owner and became his confessor. Spending the rest of his life in asceticism at Vatopedi, he departed this life peacefully in the Lord.

3. The Holy Martyr Antonina.

Born in Nicaea, she was arrested and harshly tortured for the Christian Faith. She was finally sewn into a sack and thrown into a lake in 302, but God saved her soul and glorified her forever among the angels in heaven and among the faithful on earth.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Faithfulness and obedience to the will of God must adorn the life of every Christian. God glorifies the faithful and obedient, as is seen in the life of St. Agapios. This saint was captured by pirates as a young man, taken off to Asia and sold to an Arab. Agapios spent twelve whole years with this Arab, silent and obedient, and for twelve whole years he prayed to the most holy Mother of God to free him from slavery. One night the Mother of God appeared to him and told him to get up and go off without fear to his elder. Agapios got up and came to the Holy Mountain, to his elder. When the latter saw Agapios he was sorrowful, thinking that Agapios had escaped by himself from his owner, and he said to him: ‘My child, you have deceived your master, but you can in no wise deceive God. On the day of the Dreadful Judgement, you will have to answer for the money with which your owner bought you to serve him. So go back and serve your owner faithfully.’ Agapios, faithful and obedient, went back at once to Asia, presented himself to his owner and recounted to him all that had happened. The Arab, hearing all this, marveled at the virtuous Christians and desired to see Agapios’ elder. He took two of his sons with him to the Holy Mountain. There he and his sons were baptized, and all three became monks and remained till their death in asceticism, first under the guidance of Agapios’ elder and then under that of Agapios himself. And so the one-time harsh owner became the obedient disciple of his former slave, the faithful Agapios, himself obedient to the will of God.

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.