Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians [§ 222]. Brethren:

2 ¹⁹Ye are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God, ²⁰who were built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, ²¹in Whom every building, being joined together, increaseth to a holy temple in the Lord, ²²in Whom ye also are being built up together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

3 ¹For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of the Christ, Jesus, on behalf of you, the nations— ²if, indeed, ye heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me in regard to you, ³that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (even as I wrote before briefly, ⁴according to which reading ye are able to perceive my understanding in the mystery of the Christ), ⁵which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as now it was revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: ⁶the nations are to be joint-heirs, and fellow members of the body, and joint-partakers of His promise in the Christ, through the Gospel, ⁷of which I became a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God which was given to me according to the energy of His power.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 18]. At that time:

5 ¹²As Jesus was in one of the cities, behold, a man full of leprosy; and after he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and entreated Him, saying, “Lord, if Thou art willing, Thou art able to cleanse me.” ¹³And He stretched forth His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And straightway the leprosy departed from him. ¹⁴And He ordered him to tell no one, “But go and show thyself to the priest, and make an offering for thy cleansing, even as Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.” ¹⁵But the report concerning Him kept on going abroad much more; and many crowds were coming together to hear, and to be cured from their infirmities by Him. ¹⁶But He Himself was withdrawing into the wildernesses and was praying.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of our venerable Father Kyriakos the Anchorite.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians [§ 213]. Brethren:

5 ²²The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, ²³meekness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴But they who are of the Christ crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts. ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be walking by the Spirit. ²⁶Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another.

6 ¹Brethren, even if a man should be overtaken in some transgression, ye, the spiritual ones, be restoring such a one in the spirit of meekness, looking out for thyself, lest thou also be tempted. ²Keep on bearing one another’s burdens, and thus fill up the law of the Christ.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 24]. At that time:

6 ¹⁷ Jesus stood upon a level place. And there was a crowd of His disciples, and a great multitude of the people from all of Judæa and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases— ¹⁸even those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and they were cured. ¹⁹And all the crowd was seeking to touch Him, for power was coming forth from Him and healing all. ²⁰And He lifted up His eyes to His disciples, and began to say:

“Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

²¹“Blessed are ye who hunger now, for ye shall be filled.

Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh.

²²“Blessed are ye whenever men hate you, and whenever they separate you, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.

²³“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in the heavens.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

October 12th – Civil Calendar
September 29th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Father Kyriakos (Cyriacus) the Solitary.

Born in Corinth of parents named John (a priest) and Evdoxia, he was a kinsman of the local bishop, Peter. He was made reader in the cathedral by the bishop while still a young man. Reading the holy Scriptures, the young Kyriakos marveled at God’s providence, how it glorified every true servant of the living God and ordered the salvation of the human race. At the age of eighteen, his desire for the spiritual life led him to Jerusalem. There he entered the monastery of a godly man called Evstorgios, who grounded him in the monastic life. He then went off to St. Efthymios, who discerned in him future spiritual greatness, clothed him in the Great Habit and sent him to the Jordan, to St. Gerasimos, where Kyriakos spent nine years. After Gerasimos’ death, he returned to St. Efthymios’ monastery, where he remained in silence for ten years. After this he moved from place to place, fleeing the praise of men. He lived in ascetic labor also in the community of St. Chariton, where he finished his earthly course, having lived for a hundred and nine years. A glorious ascetic and wonder-worker, St. Kyriakos was massive and strong of body, and stayed thus in great old age, despite strict fasts and vigils. In the desert, he sometimes lived for years only on raw vegetables. He was very zealous for the Orthodox Faith, denouncing heresies, especially the heresy of Origen. Of himself he said that, while he was a monk, the sun never saw him eat or be angry with any man. According to the rule of St. Chariton, the monks ate only once a day, after sunset. Kyriakos was a great light, a pillar of Orthodoxy, the boast of monks, a mighty healer of the sick and a gentle comforter of the sorrowful. Living long in asceticism and giving aid to many, he entered into the eternal joy of his Lord in 557.

2. The Holy Martyrs Dada and Gobdelas.

Dada was a Persian noble and a kinsman of King Sapor, and Gobdelas was the son of the same king. When St. Dada openly confessed his faith in Christ, King Sapor ordered that he be harshly tortured. During these tortures, Dada worked great miracles in Christ’s name, which made such an impression on Gobdelas that he also embraced the Christian Faith. The pagan king did not spare his son, but gave him over to harsh torture. Both Dada and Gobdelas glorified God in their patient endurance and many miracles, and gave their souls to God under the tortures. They suffered in the fourth century. With them there suffered—for they had also come to faith in Christ—Gobdelas’ sister Kasdoa and Gargal, the chief of the pagan priests.

3. St. Theophanes the Merciful.

A wealthy citizen of Gaza, he was so merciful that he gave away his goods to the poor and himself became one of them. Near the end of his life, he was stricken with dropsy and died of this sickness. A healing myrrh flowed from his body, by which many of the sick were healed.

4. St. Mary of Palestine.

She was at first a Psalm-reader of the Psalter in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, but being beautiful, she was a source of scandal to the sinful-minded. In order not to be a cause of sin in others, Mary withdrew to the wilderness of Souka with a basket of beans and a flask of water. She spent eighteen years in the desert, and by God’s power, never lacked either beans or water. Disciples of St. Kyriakos found her during her lifetime, and later buried her.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Many people, from ignorance, exert themselves to avoid suffering in old age and terminal illness rather than to avoid the pains of hell in the life after old age and death. There was once an unmarried miser who, from year to year, strove to acquire for himself superfluous riches. When he was asked the point of so much toil and acquisition of goods, which were too much for his lifetime, he replied: ‘I’m gathering them for my old age. My goods will tend and feed me in old age and sickness’. His presentiment was soon realized. In old age, a serious and long-lasting sickness fell upon him. He distributed the money he had saved to doctors to heal him, and to servants to look after him and feed him, but the money ran out and the illness continued. His doctors and servants left him, and he fell into despair. His neighbors brought him bread until he died, and he was buried at public expense. Of what use were those goods to him to whom they were given? God did His will in him, and sent upon him that sickness of which he had spoken and for which he had prepared his goods. However, all his goods were unable to ease his sufferings in this world—and by what could he be eased of them in the world to come? By what, if he took with him neither faith nor hope, nor works of mercy, prayer or repentance? Someone saw a departed man in the glory of Paradise, and asked him by what he had become worthy of that glory. The man replied: ‘I was, in my earthly life, the hireling of an evildoer, who never paid me my hire; but I endured everything and served him to the end with hope in God.’ He saw another in eternal glory, and when he asked him, the other replied: ‘I was a leper, and to the end rendered God thanks for that.’ The one, though, who heaped up riches for sickness in his old age, will never be seen by any man in the glory of Paradise in the other world.

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.