Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans [§ 107].

11 ²⁵Brethren, I do not wish you to be ignorant regarding this mystery—in order that ye be not wise in yourselves—that hardness in part hath happened to Israel until the fullness of the nations should enter in. ²⁶And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it hath been written: “The Deliverer shall come out of Sion, and He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; ²⁷“and this is the covenant from Me to them, whenever I should take away their sins [cf. Is. 59:20, 21; Jer. 38(31):31, 34].” ²⁸On the one hand, as regards the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes; but on the other hand, as regards the election they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. ²⁹For not to be repented of are the gifts of grace and calling of God. ³⁰For even as ye also once disobeyed God, but now ye were shown mercy by their disobedience, ³¹so also these now disobeyed, that by the mercy shown to you they also might have mercy shown them; ³²for God shut up all in disobedience, that He might have mercy upon all. ³³O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! ³⁴“For who did know the mind of the Lord? Or who became His counselor [Is. 40:13]?” ³⁵Or who first gave to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him? ³⁶For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be the glory to the ages. Amen.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 44].

12 ¹At that time, on the sabbath, Jesus went through the sown fields; and His disciples hungered, and began to pluck the ears of grain and to eat. ²But after the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Behold, Thy disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a sabbath.” ³But He said to them, “Did ye not read what David did when he hungered and those with him: ⁴“how he entered into the house of God and ate the loaves set forth before the presence of God, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests only? ⁵“Or did ye not read in the law that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless? ⁶“But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. ⁷“But if ye had known what this is, ‘I wish mercy and not sacrifice [cf. Hos. 6:7],’ ye would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸“For the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Martyr Hyacinth of Cæsarea in Cappadocia.

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 125]. Brethren:

1 ¹⁸The word, that of the Cross, on the one hand, to those who are perishing is foolishness, but on the other hand, to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it hath been written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will set at nought the comprehension of the intelligent [cf. Is. 29:14].” ²⁰Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Did not God make foolish the wisdom of this world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world knew not God through its wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. ²²For indeed, Jews ask for a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom; ²³but we proclaim Christ Who hath been crucified, to Jews, on the one hand, a stumbling block, and to Greeks, on the other hand, foolishness, ²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, God’s power and God’s wisdom.

Gospel

No reading given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

July 16th – Civil Calendar
July 3rd – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Martyr Hyacinth.

A young man, a courtier at the court of the Emperor Trajan, he was a secret Christian. Once, when the emperor and all his court were offering sacrifice to idols, Hyacinth stood apart from these abominable ceremonies. He was therefore denounced and brought to trial before the emperor. The emperor urged him to deny Christ and sacrifice to idols, but Hyacinth remained firm as diamond and said to the Emperor: ‘I am a Christian. I revere Christ and worship Him, and I bring my living self to Him as a sacrifice.’ Whipped, spat upon and flayed, this holy martyr was flung into prison. By order of the emperor, he was given nothing to eat but food that had been sacrificed to idols. Hyacinth would not eat this, and died in prison after eight days. The warder saw two shining angels in the prison, one covering the martyr’s body with his own glorious vesture and the other placing a wreath of glory on his head; and the whole prison was filled with light and radiance. The young Hyacinth suffered with honor and was crowned with a wreath of glory in the year 108.

2. St. Anatolios, Patriarch of Constantinople.

He was at first a priest in Alexandria, but after the death of Patriarch Flavian in 449, he was elevated to the patriarchal throne in Constantinople. In his time, the throne of Constantinople was declared to be equal with that of Rome, at the Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451. He strove mightily for the purity of the Orthodox Faith, suffered much at the hands of heretics and was in the end killed by them in 458, in the reign of Leo the Great. He governed the Church for nearly nine years, and went to join the holy hierarchs in the kingdom of God.

3. Our Holy Father Alexander.

Born in Asia and educated in Constantinople, he went into the army after completing his studies and became an officer. Reading the holy Scriptures, he came upon the Savior’s words: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me’ (Matt. 19:21). These words made such an impression on him that he sold and gave away all that he had, and went off to the desert. After long asceticism and striving for purification, he founded the community of the ‘Unsleeping Ones’ (Akoimetoi) with a special rule. According to this rule, the services in the church continued day and night in unbroken sequence. The brethren were divided into six groups, each having its appointed hours of day or night to go to church and take over the reading and singing from the previous group. He travelled a great deal all over the East, bringing people to faith in Christ, disputing with heretics, working miracles by God’s grace and growing old in the service of the Lord Jesus. He finished his earthly course in Constantinople in the year 430, where his relics revealed the miraculous power and glory with which God had glorified His holy servant.

4. Our Holy Father Isaias the Solitary.

He lived in asceticism at Sketis in Egypt and then in Palestine, dying in Gaza in about 491. He is mentioned in Barsanuphius and John’s book as a man of outstanding holiness (Answers: 240, 252, 311, etc.). He wrote much that was instructive for monks and solitaries, but few of his writings are extant, the majority having been destroyed by Moslems. St. Isaias said: ‘The mind, before it awakens from the sleep of laziness, is with the demons.’ ‘The crown of all good works consists in this: that a man place all his hope in God, that he flee to Him once and for all with all his heart and strength, that he be filled with compassion for all and weep before God, imploring His help and mercy.’ What is the sign that a man’s sin is forgiven? ‘The sign that a sin is forgiven is that the sin has no further action in your heart, and that you have so utterly forgotten it that, in speaking of such a sin, you feel no inclination to it but regard it as something totally outside you. That is the sign that you are forgiven.’ Prayer and asceticism are useless to a man who conceals within himself malice towards his neighbor and the desire for revenge. ‘Watch with all your strength that your mouth does not speak one thing and your heart contain something quite different.’ ‘The crown of good works is love; the crown of the passions is the justifying of one’s sins.’

FOR CONSIDERATION

Love is almighty. It can, among other things, soften the judgement on the souls of departed sinners. The Orthodox Church deliberately emphasises this, and strives to offer prayers and alms for the dead. Most rich in all spiritual experience, the Church knows that prayers and alms for the dead help them in the other world. St. Athanasia the Abbess (April 12th) commanded her nuns to prepare a table for the poor and needy for forty days after her death. The nuns observed this only for ten days, then stopped it. The saint then appeared, accompanied by two angels, and said to the nuns: ‘Why have you not carried out my instructions? Know that by alms and the prayers of the priest for the souls of the departed during the forty days, the mercy of God is invoked. If the departed souls are sinful, they receive through these alms God’s forgiveness of their sins; and if they are sinless, then they are efficacious for the forgiveness of those who do the alms.’ She is, of course, thinking here of alms and prayers linked with a great love for the souls of the departed. Such alms and prayers are indeed of help.

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.