Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Thursday of the Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans [§ 106]. Brethren:

11 ¹³I speak to you, the nations. Inasmuch as I am indeed an apostle of the nations, I glorify my ministry, ¹⁴if by any means I might provoke to jealousy my flesh and might save some of them. ¹⁵For if the casting away of them is the reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be if not life from the dead? ¹⁶Now if the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. ¹⁷And if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, ¹⁸cease boasting against the branches. But if thou boast against them, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. ¹⁹Thou wilt say then, “The branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰Well; by unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Cease being high-minded, but be afraid. ²¹For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest perchance He should not spare thee either. ²²Behold then the kindness and severity of God: upon those that fell, severity; but upon thee, kindness, if thou continue in the kindness. Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. ²³And they also, if they continue not in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild according to nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 43]. The Lord said to His disciples:

11 ²⁷“All things were delivered to Me by My Father. And no one doth fully know the Son, except the Father; nor doth anyone fully know the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal Him. ²⁸“Come to Me, all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹“Take up My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls. ³⁰“For My yoke is good and My burden is light.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

12. The commemoration of our venerable Fathers Onouphrios of Egypt and Peter the Athonite.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 37]. In those days:

15 ³⁵Paul and Barnabas were spending time in Antioch, teaching and preaching as good tidings the word of the Lord, with many others also. ³⁶And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return now and visit our brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are holding fast.” ³⁷And Barnabas determined to take with them John, who is called Mark. ³⁸But Paul kept on thinking it not meet to take along that one, since he withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. ³⁹Then a sharp contention arose, so as to separate them from one another: and Barnabas, having taken Mark, sailed away to Cyprus; ⁴⁰and Paul, having chosen for himself Silas, went forth, having been commended to the grace of God by the brethren. ⁴¹And he passed through Syria and Cilicia, rendering more firm the churches.

for Sl. usage, see [Gal. 5:22-6:2].

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 43]. The Lord said to His disciples:

11 ²⁷“All things were delivered to Me by My Father. And no one doth fully know the Son, except the Father; nor doth anyone fully know the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal Him. ²⁸“Come to Me, all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹“Take up My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls. ³⁰“For My yoke is good and My burden is light.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

June 25th – Civil Calendar
June 12th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Father Onuphrius the Great.

This holy ascetic had been living a whole sixty years in the desert when the monk Paphnutios visited him. His hair and beard reached down to the ground, and long hair, as white as snow, had grown all over his body during his years of nakedness. His appearance was ascetical, unearthly and awe-inspiring. Seeing Paphnutios, he called him by name and then recounted to him his life in the desert. His guardian angel had appeared to him and taken him to that place. When he had survived an intensive struggle with diabolical temptations and when his heart had become utterly established in love for God, an angel had brought him bread to eat. And besides that, through God’s gracious providence, a palm tree grew up at one side of his cell, that gave good dates, and a spring of water began to flow there. ‘But especially,’ said Onuphrius, ‘my food and drink are the sweet words of God.’ To Paphnutios’ question about his receiving of Communion, the hermit answered that the angel of God brought him Communion every Sunday. On the next day, the old man told Paphnutios that it was the day of his departure from this world; then he knelt down, prayed to God and gave his spirit into God’s hands. Then Paphnutios saw a heavenly light that illumined the body of the departed saint, and heard a choir of the angelic hosts. He buried Onuphrius’ body with honor and returned to his own monastery, there as a living witness to narrate to the brethren, for their edification, the wonderful life of the man of God and the greatness of God’s providence towards those who give themselves wholly to His service. Onuphrius died in the year 400.

2. Our Holy Father Peter the Athonite.

He was a Greek by birth, and a soldier by profession. Being once engaged in battle against the Arabs, he was captured, chained and thrown into prison. Peter spent a long time in imprisonment in the town of Samara on the Euphrates, and prayed God with all his being to free him and take him to some desert place where he could devote himself to prayerful asceticism. St. Simeon the God-receiver appeared to him in the prison, together with St. Nicholas, and touched the iron of his chains which melted like wax. Peter suddenly found himself in the open outside the city. He immediately set out on the road for Rome, where he was tonsured as a monk by the pope at the tomb of St. Peter. He then set out by ship to return to the East. The most holy Mother of God appeared to him in a dream, talking with St. Nicholas, and she told St. Nicholas that she had set Mount Athos apart for Peter to live on in asceticism. Peter had at that time not heard of Mount Athos. Disembarking, then, at the Holy Mountain, Peter settled in a cave, where he spent fifty-three years in strict asceticism, in struggles with hunger and thirst, with heat and cold and especially with diabolical powers, until he had overcome them all by the help of God. When he had undergone the first temptations and succeeded in the first test before God, an angel of God began to bring him bread every forty days. The tempter appeared to him several times in the guise of an angel of light, but Peter drove him away with the sign of the Cross and the name of the most holy Mother of God. A year before his death, a deer-hunter passed that way and learned of the saint’s life from his lips. He died in 734, and his relics were taken to Macedonia.

3. Our Holy Father Timothy, an Egyptian hermit.

He lived the ascetic life first in the Thebaid, then went off into the desert, where he spent thirty years. Being pleasing to God, he died peacefully.

4. Our Holy Fathers Bassian and Jonah.

Monks of the monastery of Solovki, they were drowned and cast onto the shore in 1651. A sign appeared over their graves, and a church was built there. Later, the monastery of Petrominsk was founded on the site. Once Tsar Peter I, sheltering from a storm at sea, spent three days there and made a cross, which he erected on the shore.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Communion is a great and wonderful mystery. Even solitaries and hermits sought opportunities to receive holy Communion. St. Mary of Egypt begged St. Zosimas to bring the Holy Mysteries to the Jordan and give her Communion. Our holy father Paphnutios, returning from his visit to St. Onuphrius, found four young men living the ascetic life in a very humble community. When Paphnutios asked them if they had any chance of receiving Communion, they replied that an angel of God came to them every Sunday and brought them Communion. Paphnutios remained until the following Sunday and personally witnessed this. When the Sunday dawned, the whole monastery was filled with an indescribable, heavenly fragrance. While they were at prayer, an angel of God in the form of a handsome young man, bright as lightning, appeared with the Holy Gifts. Paphnutios was terrified and fell to the ground in fear, but they raised him up, and he also received Communion at the angel’s hands. St. Onuphrius received Communion at the hands of an angel, according to his own testimony, as did many other solitaries and hermits. It is therefore a completely mistaken idea to think that solitaries and hermits did not receive Communion. God, Who provided for their bodily sustenance, did not leave them without the life-giving food of the body and blood of Christ the Lord.

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.