Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Monday of the Twenty-Ninth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 308]. Brethren:

3 ⁵Indeed, “Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant [cf. Num. 12:7],” for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken, ⁶but Christ as Son over His house, Whose house are we, if indeed we should hold fast the boldness and the boasting of the hope firm until the end. ⁷Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith, “Today, if ye will hear His voice [Ps. 94(95):8], ⁸“do not go on hardening your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of the temptation in the wilderness [Ps. 94(95):8], ⁹“where your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years [cf. Ps. 94(95):9, 10]. ¹⁰“Wherefore I was wroth with that generation, and I said, ‘They always err in their heart, and they do not know My ways [cf. Ps. 94(95):10, 11]’; ¹¹“so I swore in My wrath, ‘If they shall enter into My rest [Ps. 94(95):11]’”;... ¹⁷and with whom was He wroth forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom swore He that they should not enter into His rest, except to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹And we see that they were not able to enter in on account of unbelief.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 97]. At that time:

19 ³⁷When Jesus drew near, already at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began rejoicing and to be praising God with a loud voice for all the works of power which they saw, ³⁸saying, “Blessed is the King Who cometh in the name of the Lord [cf. Ps. 117(118):25(26)]; peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.” ³⁹And some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Thy disciples.” ⁴⁰And He answered and said to them, “I say to you that if these should keep silent, the stones will cry out.” ⁴¹And as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, ⁴²saying, “If thou knewest, even thou, and at least in this thy day, the things for thy peace! But now it is hidden from thine eyes. ⁴³“For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall put a rampart around thee, and encompass thee and contain thee on every side, ⁴⁴“and dash to the ground thee and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Prophet Nahum.

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 156].

14 ²⁰Brethren, cease becoming children in your minds, but be ye infants in malice; and keep on becoming mature in your minds. ²¹In the law it hath been written: “By other tongues and by other lips will I speak to this people; and not even thus will they hear Me [cf. Is. 28:11, 12],” saith the Lord. ²²Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to the unbelievers; and prophecy is not for the unbelievers, but to those who believe. ²³If therefore the whole church should come together in the same place, and all be speaking with tongues, and those who are unlearned or unbelievers should come in, will they not say that ye are mad? ²⁴But if all be prophesying, and some unbeliever or one unlearned should come in, he is reproved by all, he is examined by all. ²⁵And thus are the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling upon his face, he will make obeisance to God, reporting that God is verily among you.

Gospel

No reading given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

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

1. The Holy Prophet Naum (Nahum).

Born of the tribe of Simeon in a place called Elkosh, on the further side of the Jordan, he lived seven hundred years before Christ and foretold the fall of Nineveh two hundred years after the Prophet Jonah. The people of Nineveh had repented after hearing Jonah’s preaching, and God had protected them and not destroyed them. But, with the passage of time, they came to forget God’s mercy and turned again to evil. Naum foretold their doom, warning them that, if they showed no repentance, they would receive no protection. The entire city was so utterly destroyed by earthquake, flood and fire that its location is no longer known. Holy Naum lived for forty-five years before going to his rest in the Lord, leaving us a small book of his true and genuine prophecies.

2. St. Philaret the Merciful.

From the village of Amnia in Paphlagonia, Philaret was at first a man of some substance, but as a result of his constant almsgiving, he became utterly destitute. He was not afraid of poverty, and went on with his charitable works with trust in the Lord Who has said: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,’ paying no attention to the disapproval of his wife and children. Once, when he was ploughing in his meadow, a man came to him with the news of the death of his ox in harness, and of his inability to plough with only one ox, so Philaret unharnessed his own and gave it to him. He gave away his remaining horse to a man who was called away to battle, and the calf from his remaining cow—and, when he saw how the cow pined after her calf, gave the man the cow as well. And so the aged Philaret was left hungry in an empty house. But he prayed to God, entrusting himself to Him. God does not abandon the righteous man, allowing him to be shamed in his hope. At that time, the Empress Irene was on the throne with her young son Constantine, and in accordance with the custom of the time, the empress sent men through the whole empire to find the best and most distinguished maiden to wed her son. By divine providence, these men happened upon Philaret’s home and beheld his very beautiful and modest grand-daughter Maria, the daughter of Hypatia, and they took her to Constantinople. The emperor was well-pleased with her and took her to wife, and brought Philaret and all his family to the capital, showering honor and wealth upon them. Philaret did not become proud in this change of fortune, but with gratitude to God, performed still greater deeds of charity than before, remaining thus for the rest of his days. At the age of ninety, he called all his children to him, and having blessed them and instructed them to cleave to God and His law, foretold to each of them how their lives would develop, just as our forefather Jacob did aforetime. When he had done this, he went to a monastery and there gave his soul into God’s hands. At his death, his face shone like the sun and a sweet fragrance arose from his body, and miracles were worked over his relics. This righteous man of God went to his rest in 797. His wife and all his children and grandchildren lived and died in the Lord.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Virtue is like a thirst. When a man begins to drink, he becomes yet more thirsty and seeks to drink more and more often. Whoever begins to practice the virtue of compassion knows and acknowledges no limit. St. Philaret was no less generous in poverty than he was in wealth. When his grand-daughter became empress, he became a rich man once again, and not a wit less generous. One day, he told his wife and children to prepare the most lavish feast they could, and said: ‘Let us invite our King and Lord and all His great men to our feast’. Everyone thought that the elder meant to invite his son-in-law, the emperor, and so they worked especially hard to prepare the feast. However, Philaret went around the streets and gathered all the poor, the wretched, the despised, the lame and the enfeebled, and brought them to the feast. He sat them down at table and told his wife and sons to serve them. At the end of the feast, he gave each guest a gold coin. Then everyone understood that by ‘the King,’ he meant the Lord Christ Himself, and by the ‘great men,’ the poor and helpless. He used to say that one must not decide beforehand what money to give to the poor, but to give whatever was in the hand when it came out of one’s pocket, for the hand would find whatever God in His providence had given.

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.