Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Movable Calendar (Paschalion)

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of the Great Fast

There is No Divine Liturgy This Day Because of the Great Fast.

No readings given.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of our holy Mother Mary of Egypt.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians [§§ 208, 209]. Brethren:

3 ²³Before faith came, we were being guarded under the law, having been closed up to the faith about to be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law hath become our tutor until Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor. ²⁶For all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷For as many as were baptized into Christ, ye put on Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to promise.

4 ¹Now I say, as long as the heir is an infant, he differeth nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all; ²but he is under guardians and stewards until the appointed time of the father. ³So we also, when we were infants, were enslaved under the elements of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵in order that He might redeem those under the law, that we might receive what is our due, the adoption as sons.

Gospel

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

8 ³The scribes and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught in adultery. And after they made her stand in the midst, ⁴they say to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught committing adultery, in the very act. ⁵“Now Moses, in the law, commanded us to stone such women. Thou therefore, what sayest Thou?” ⁶But this they were saying, putting Him to the test, in order that they may have an accusation against Him. But Jesus, having stooped down, was writing with His finger on the ground. ⁷And as they continued questioning Him, He lifted up Himself and said to them, “The one who is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her.” ⁸And again He stooped down and was writing on the ground. ⁹But after they heard and were convicted by their own conscience, they were going out one by one, beginning from the eldest. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman being in the midst. ¹⁰And after Jesus lifted up Himself, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of thine? Did no one condemn thee?” ¹¹And she said, “No one, Sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and henceforth no longer go on sinning.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

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

1. St. Mary of Egypt.

The recorder of the life of this wonderful saint was St. Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem. A hieromonk, the elder Zosimas, had gone off at one time during the Great Fast a twenty-days’ walk into the wilderness across the Jordan. He suddenly caught sight of a human being with a withered and naked body and with hair as white as snow, who fled in its nakedness from Zosimas’ sight. The elder ran a long way, until this figure stopped at a stream and called: ‘Father Zosimas, forgive me for the Lord’s sake. I cannot turn round to you, for I am a naked woman.’ Then Zosimas threw her his outer cloak, and she wrapped herself in it and turned round to him. The elder was amazed at hearing his name from the lips of this unknown woman. After considerable pressure on his part, she told him her life-story. She had been born in Egypt, and from the age of twelve had lived a life enjoying the pleasures of the flesh whenever she could, spending seventeen years in this way of life in Alexandria. Urged by the lustful fire of the flesh, she one day got into a ship that was sailing for Jerusalem. Arriving at the holy city, she made to go into the church to venerate the Precious Cross during the Elevation of the Holy Cross, but some unseen power prevented her from entering. In great fear, she turned to an icon of the Mother of God that was in the entrance, and begged her to let her go in and venerate the Cross, confessing her sin and impurity and promising that she would then go wherever the Panagia led her. She was then allowed to enter the church. After venerating the Cross, she went out again to the entrance, and standing in front of the icon, thanked the Mother of God. Then she heard a voice: ‘If you cross the Jordan, you will find true peace.’ She immediately bought three loaves of bread and set off for the Jordan, arriving there the same evening. She received Communion the following morning in the monastery of St. John, and then crossed the river. She spent forty-eight whole years in the wilderness in the greatest torments, in terror, in struggles with passionate thoughts like gigantic beasts. She fed only on herbs and what could be found in the desert. After that, when she was standing in prayer, Zosimas saw her lifted up in the air. She begged him to bring her Communion the next year on the bank of the Jordan, and she would come to receive it. The following year, Zosimas came with the Holy Gifts to the bank of the Jordan in the evening, and stood in amazement as he saw her cross the river. He saw her coming in the moonlight, and arriving on the further bank, make the sign of the Cross over the river. She then walked across it as though it were dry land. When she had received Communion, she begged him to come again the following year to the same place where they had first met. Zosimas went, and found her dead body there on that spot. Above her head in the sand was written: ‘Abba Zosimas, bury in this place the body of the humble Mary. Give dust to dust. I passed away on April 1st, on the very night of Christ’s Passion, after having partaken of the divine Mysteries.’ Zosimas learned her name for the first time, and also the awe inspiring marvel that she had arrived at that stream the previous year on the night of the same day on which she had received Communion—a place that he had taken twenty days to reach. And thus Zosimas buried the body of the wonderful saint, Mary of Egypt. When he returned to the monastery, he recounted the whole story of her life and the wonders to which he had been an eyewitness. Thus the Lord glorifies repentant sinners. St. Mary is also commemorated in the Fifth Week of the Great Fast. The Church holds her up before the faithful in these days of the Fast as a model of repentance. She entered into rest in 522.

2. Our Holy Father Procopius the Czech.

Born in Hotish, Czechoslovakia, of eminent parents, he became a priest and went off into the mountains to live after the example of the Eastern hermits. Herzog Ulrich came across him by chance and helped him to found the monastery of St. John the Forerunner by the River Sazava. This holy man entered into rest in 1053.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Why is so much said and written about the sufferings of holy men and women? Because these saints are counted as victors—and how can there be victory without struggle, pain and suffering? In ordinary, earthly warfare no man is reckoned as victorious and heroic who has never been in battle, who has not endured and suffered to a very considerable extent. All the more is this so in spiritual warfare, where the truth is clear and where self-assertion is not only of no use but is a real hindrance. He who knows no struggle for the sake of Christ, either with the world or with the devil or with his own self—how can he be counted among Christ’s soldiers? How, indeed, among Christ’s fellow-victors? St. Mary spoke of this gigantic struggle to the elder Zosimas: ‘For the first seventeen years in this wilderness, I struggled with my mindless passions as with fierce beasts. I wanted to eat meat and fish, which I had eaten abundantly in Egypt. I wanted to drink wine, and did not even have water here. I wanted to hear lustful songs. And I wept and smote my breast. I prayed to the most pure Mother of God to remove these thoughts from me. When I had wept and smote my breast for a long time, I then saw a light that flooded over me from all sides, and was filled with a wonderful peace.’

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.