Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Thirty-Eighth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 174]. Brethren:

3 ¹²Since we have such hope, we use much boldness; ¹³and not as Moses who used to put a veil over his face, in order that the sons of Israel should not look intently at the end of that being abolished. ¹⁴But their minds were hardened: For until this day, the same veil remaineth upon the reading of the old testament, it not being revealed that in Christ the veil is being abolished. ¹⁵But until today, when Moses is being read, a veil lieth upon their heart. ¹⁶But whenever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸But we all, with unveiled face, reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 22]. At that time:

6 ¹On the sabbath, Jesus was going through the sown fields; and His disciples were plucking the ears of grain and eating them, rubbing them small in their hands. ²And some of the Pharisees said to them, “Why do ye that which it is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?” ³And answering Jesus said to them, “Did ye not read even this, that which David did, when he himself hungered and those who were with him: ⁴“how he entered into the house of God, and took the loaves set forth before the presence of God, and ate, and gave also to those with him, which it is not lawful to eat, except for the priests only?” ⁵And He was saying to them, “The Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.” ⁶And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that He entered into the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand also was withered. ⁷And the scribes and the Pharisees were watching closely whether He would cure on the sabbath, in order that they might find an accusation against Him. ⁸But He knew their reasonings, and said to the man who had the withered hand, “Arise and stand in the midst.” And he arose and stood. ⁹Then Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one thing, whether it is lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” ¹⁰And after He looked round about at them all, He said to the man, “Stretch forth thy hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored as the other.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Afterfeast of the Meeting of the Lord, and our holy father, Parthenios, Bishop of Lampsakos on the Hellespont, and our holy Father Luke of Hellas.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

February 20th – Civil Calendar
February 7th – Church Calendar

1. St. Parthenios, Bishop of Lampsacus.

He was the son of a deacon from the city of Melitopolis. He knew the words of the Gospel by heart from his early youth, and strove to fulfill them. Settling beside a lake, he caught fish, sold them and shared the proceeds with the poor. By God’s providence, he was chosen as bishop of Lampsacus. He cleansed the city of paganism, closed the temples dedicated to idol-worship, built many churches and strengthened the faithful. He healed all manner of sickness through prayer, and was especially powerful over spirits. At one time when he was about to drive the evil spirit out of a madman, the evil spirit begged him not to. ‘I will give you another man, into whom you can enter and in whom you can dwell,’ Parthenios told him. ‘And who is that man?’ ‘I am he,’ replied the saint, ‘Come and make your abode in me’. Hearing this, the evil spirit fled as though burned by fire, crying out: ‘How can I enter into the house of God?’ St. Parthenios lived long and showed in his deeds the greatness of his love for God and man. He entered into the eternal peace of Christ in the 4th century.

2. Our Holy Father Luke of Hellas.

Luke was born in Castorius. Even as a child, he had no desire to taste meat, and spent the whole of his life with purity and prayer. One day he went to sow his field with wheat. On the way, he gave the greater part of the wheat to a poor man and the lesser part, which remained to him, he sowed. God provided that, from this small amount of seed, there came a greater harvest than had previously come from the whole amount. After that, Luke ran away from his mother and entered a monastery. His widowed mother prayed ardently to God to reveal to her where her son was to be found, and God heard her prayer. The abbot of that monastery dreamed three times in succession that a woman was vehemently accusing him of having taken her only son. The abbot then ordered Luke to return at once to his mother. Luke went and saw his mother, but once again left her, this time for good. He labored on a mountain called ‘John’s Mountain’. He prayed at night and worked in the gardens and fields by day, not for himself but for the poor and the visitors, himself living only on barley bread. He was endowed by God with wonder-working gifts, and entered peacefully into rest in the year 946. From time to time, myrrh flowed from his relics.

3. Our Holy Mother Mastridia.

She lived a life of great asceticism in Jerusalem. A young man who saw her began to pester her, so to save them both from sin she took some soaked beans in a basket and went off into the desert. There she spent seventeen years, during which time, by the power of God, the beans did not come to an end nor her clothing wear out. She entered peacefully into rest in about 580.

4. The Thousand and Three Martyrs of Nikomedia

They suffered in the reign of Diocletian.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Take on yourself some penance for the sin of others. If you have condemned or punished another, take some penance on yourself. Suffer a little, voluntarily, for the sins of sinners. That is pleasing to God. The saints knew this mystery when they condemned themselves for the sins of others. Even non-Christian peoples have some grasp of this. In China, for instance, there is the following custom: when the executioner beheads a criminal condemned to death, he goes to the judge and reports that the sentence has been carried out. The judge gives him a silver piece for killing the criminal, and orders that he receive forty strokes of the lash for killing a man. The Christian saints had a profound understanding of the mystery of sin and the unrighteousness of man. Each human sin had for them a history as long as that stretching back from us to Adam.

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.