Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Sixth Sunday of Pascha, or the Sunday of the Blind Man

Mode Plagal One — Eighth Eothinon

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 38]. In those days:

16 ¹⁶It came to pass, as we went to prayer, that a certain young girl, possessing a spirit of Python, met us, who was producing much business for her masters by divining. ¹⁷She followed after Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are slaves of God, the Most High, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” ¹⁸And she kept doing this for many days. But Paul was worn out, and turned around to the spirit, and said, “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out from her.” And he came out the same hour. ¹⁹And after her masters saw that the hope of their business was gone, they laid hold of Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. ²⁰And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city, ²¹“and declare customs, which are not allowed for us to receive, nor to do, being Romans.” ²²And the crowd rose together against them; and the magistrates tore off their garments, and kept on commanding to beat them with rods. ²³And after they laid on them many stripes, they cast them into prison, ordering the jailer to guard them securely, ²⁴who, having received such an order, cast them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks. ²⁵And at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God; and the prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶And suddenly there occurred a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and the bonds of all were loosed. ²⁷The jailer, having been awakened out of sleep and seeing the doors of the prison opened, drew a sword, and was about to kill himself, believing the prisoners to have escaped. ²⁸But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “By no means begin to do any evil to thyself; for we are all here.” ²⁹And after he asked for lights, he leaped in and became tremulous, falling down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰And having brought them forth outside, he said, “Sirs, what is necessary for me to do in order that I might be saved?” ³¹And they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.” ³²And they spoke to him the word of the Lord, and to all those in his house. ³³And having taken them in that hour of the night, he washed their wounds. And he was baptized, he and all his, immediately. ³⁴And having brought them into his house, he set a table before them, and rejoiced, having believed in God, with all his house.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 34]. At that time:

9 ¹As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. ²And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this one or his parents, that he should be born blind?” ³Jesus answered, “Neither this one sinned nor his parents, but in order that the works of God should be made manifest in him. ⁴“It is needful for Me to be working the works of the One Who sent Me while it is day; night cometh when no one is able to be working. ⁵“Whenever I may be in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶Having said these things, He spat on the ground, and made clay out of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind one with the clay, ⁷and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is interpreted, Sent forth). He went therefore and washed, and came seeing.

⁸Then the neighbors and those who saw him that was formerly blind were saying, “This is the one who sat and begged, is it not?” ⁹Some were saying, “This is he”; but others, “He is like him.” But that one kept on saying, “I am he.” ¹⁰Then they began to say to him, “How were thine eyes opened?” ¹¹That one answered and said, “A Man Who is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash.’ And I went and washed, and received sight.” ¹²Then they said to him, “Where is that Man?” He said, “I know not.”

¹³They brought him who was once blind to the Pharisees. ¹⁴And it was a sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. ¹⁵Then again the Pharisees also began asking him how he received sight. And he said to them, “He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and I see.” ¹⁶Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, “This Man is not from God, because He keepeth not the sabbath.” Others were saying, “How is a man, a sinner, able to do such signs?” And there was a division among them. ¹⁷They say to the blind one again, “What sayest thou concerning Him, in that He opened thine eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” ¹⁸Then the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he was blind and received sight, until which time they called the parents of him who received sight. ¹⁹And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, whom ye say that he was born blind? How then doth he now see?” ²⁰His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; ²¹“but how he now seeth, we know not, or who opened his eyes, we know not; he is of age; ask him. He shall speak for himself.” ²²The parents said these things because they were fearing the Jews; for already the Jews had agreed among themselves that if anyone should confess Him to be the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue. ²³For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” ²⁴Then a second time they called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this Man is a sinner.” ²⁵Then that one answered and said, “If He is a sinner, I know not; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶But they said to him again, “What did He do to thee? How did He open thine eyes?” ²⁷He answered them, “I told you already, and ye did not hear; why again do ye wish to hear it? Ye do not also wish to become His disciples, do ye?” ²⁸Then they reviled him, and said, “Thou art a disciple of that One; but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹“We know that God hath spoken to Moses; but this One, we do not know from what place He is.” ³⁰The man answered and said to them, “Why in this is a marvellous thing, that ye do not know from what place He is, and yet He opened mine eyes. ³¹“Now we know that God heareth not sinners, but if anyone be serving God and doing His will, He heareth this one. ³²“From of old it was not heard that anyone opened the eyes of one who hath been born blind. ³³“If this One were not from God, He could do nothing.” ³⁴They answered and said to him, “In sins thou wast born, all of thee, and dost thou teach us?” And they cast him out. ³⁵Jesus heard that they cast him out; and having found him, He said to him, “Believest thou in the Son of God?” ³⁶That one answered and said, “And Who is He, Sir, that I might believe in Him?” ³⁷And Jesus said to him, “Thou hast both seen Him and the One Who talketh with thee is that One.” ³⁸And he said, “I believe, O Lord.” And he made obeisance to Him.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of our venerable Father Symeon of the Wondrous Mountain.

Epistle

No reading given.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 11]. The Lord said to His disciples:

5 ¹⁴“Ye are the light of the world. A city situated on the top of a mountain cannot be hid. ¹⁵“Nor do they light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lampstand, and it giveth light to all those in the house. ¹⁶“Thus, let your light shine before men, that they might see your good works, and might glorify your Father Who is in the heavens.

¹⁷“Do not begin to think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I came not to abolish, but to fulfill. ¹⁸“For verily I say to you, until the heaven and the earth shall have passed away, one iota or one tittle in no wise shall pass away from the law, until all shall have taken place. ¹⁹“Whosoever then shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall do and teach them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.”

for Sl. usage, see [Mt. 11:27-30].

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

June 6th – Civil Calendar
May 24th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Father Simeon the Stylite of the Wondrous Mountain.

This wondrous and holy man was born in Antioch in 521, in the reign of the Emperor Justin I the Elder. His father perished in an earthquake and he was left alone with his mother, Martha. When he was six years old, he went away into the desert to John, a spiritual teacher there, and under his guidance, gave himself to a strict asceticism of fasting and prayer, to the wonderment of all who saw him. Whilst enduring fearful demonic trials, he received great comfort and grace from the Lord and His angels. Christ the Lord appeared to him in the form of a handsome youth, and after this vision, Simeon’s heart was inflamed with great love for Christ. He spent many years on a pillar, praying and singing psalms. Led by God, he took himself off to the mountain called ‘Wondrous’ by the Lord Himself, and is known as ‘of the Wondrous Mountain’ because of this. The measure of his love for God was such that rare grace was given him, by the help of which he was able to heal every sort of illness, tame wild beasts and perceive the most distant regions of the earth and the hearts of men. He was taken to see the heavens, conversed with angels, harried the demons, prophesied, spent thirty days at a time without sleep and even longer without food, receiving nourishment at the hands of angels. The words of the Savior: ‘He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do’ (Jn 14:12), were completely fulfilled in him. In the year 596, at the age of seventy-five, Simeon went to the Lord, to the eternal enjoyment of the vision of the face of God in the company of the angels.

2. The Holy Martyr Meletius Stratelates, with 1218 soldiers and their wives and children.

Accused of the destruction of a pagan temple in the reign of the Emperor Antoninus, Meletius gave forth his holy soul nailed to a tree. Many solders under his command, who refused to deny Christ their Lord, suffered with honor in the second century, and went to the kingdom of Christ our God.

3. Our Holy Father Nikita the Stylite.

He lived an unrestrained and vicious life as a youth. When once he happened to enter a church, he heard the words of the Prophet Isaias: ‘Wash you (your sins), make you clean’ (1:16). The words penetrated deeply into his soul, and effected a complete change in his life. Nikita left his home, his wife and his land and entered a monastery close to Pereyaslavl, where he labored until his death in strict asceticism. He enveloped his body in chains and shut himself up in a pillar, being therefore known as a stylite. God granted him great grace, and he healed people afflicted with various torments. He healed Michael, Prince of Chernigov, of palsy. One day some evildoers saw the chains on him, and seeing them gleam, thought them to be silver, so they killed him one night, took the chains off him and carried them away. This happened on May 16th, 1186. He appeared to a certain elder, Simeon, after his death and told him to place the chains, when they were found, in the grave beside his body.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘To the pure, all things are pure,’ says the apostle. The food that a man eats cannot be called unclean in itself; however, some foods may evoke impure thoughts and desires in a man. St. Simeon the Stylite pondered beautifully on this in a conversation with his elder, John. The elder said: ‘A man cannot make either food or drink impure, because the Lord says in the Scriptures: “Even as the green herb have I given you all things” (Gen. 9:3)’. Holy Simeon replied: ‘Although food cannot make a man impure, it can cause impure thoughts to arise and darken the mind; it can give birth to the passions and flesh them out, transforming a spiritual man into a carnal, and turning his thoughts to earthly desires.’ Is not the water that falls from a cloud pure? But when too much rain falls, the crops rot because of it. Likewise, strong food brings about the corruption of a man’s spiritual and moral being.

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.