Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Thursday of the Thirty-First Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the General Epistle of Saint Iakovos [§ 51 B].

1 ¹⁹My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; ²⁰for man’s wrath doth not work out God’s righteousness. ²¹Wherefore lay aside all filthiness and surplus of wickedness, and receive in meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. ²²But keep on becoming doers of the word, and not only hearers, falsely reasoning for yourselves. ²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, this one is like a man observing carefully the face he was born with in a mirror; ²⁴for he observed himself well, and hath gone away, and straightway forgetteth of what sort he was. ²⁵But the one who looketh into the perfect law, that of freedom, and remaineth therein—because this one did not become a hearer of forgetfulness, but a doer of work—this one shall be happy in his doing. ²⁶If anyone among you seem to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his heart, the religion of this one is vain. ²⁷Religion pure and undefiled before the God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 57]. The Lord said:

12 ³⁸“Be wary of the scribes, who wish to walk about in full dress, and love salutations in the marketplaces, ³⁹“and chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at the dinners, ⁴⁰“who devour the houses of the widows, and for a pretense offer long prayers! These shall receive greater judgment.”

⁴¹And Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and was beholding how the crowd cast money into the treasury. And many who were rich were casting in much. ⁴²And one poor widow came and cast in two lepta, which is a quadrans. ⁴³And He called to Himself His disciples, and saith to them, “Verily I say to you that this poor widow hath cast in more than all of those who cast into the treasury; ⁴⁴“for all cast in out of that which is superfluous to them, but she, out of her need, cast in as much as she had, her whole means of living.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Afterfeast of Theophany, and the Synaxis of the honorable and glorious prophet, forerunner, and Baptist John.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 42]. In those days:

19 ¹It came to pass, while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper parts, came to Ephesus. And having found certain disciples, ²he said to them, “Did ye, having believed, receive the Holy Spirit?” And they said to him, “Nay, we did not even hear whether there is a Holy Spirit.” ³And he said to them, “Into what then were ye baptized?” And they said, “Into the baptism of John.” ⁴And Paul said, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe in the One coming after him, that is, in the Christ, Jesus.” ⁵And after they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶And after Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they were speaking with tongues and prophesying. ⁷And all the men were about twelve. ⁸And he entered into the synagogue and kept on speaking boldly for three months, discoursing and trying to persuade them concerning the things of the kingdom of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 3]. At that time:

1 ²⁹John seeth Jesus coming to him, and saith, “Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world. ³⁰“This is He concerning Whom I said, ‘After me cometh a Man Who hath come to be before me, for He was before me.’ ³¹“And I knew Him not; but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore I came baptizing in the water.” ³²And John bore witness, saying, “I have beheld the Spirit descending out of heaven as a dove, and He abode upon Him. ³³“And I knew Him not, but the One Who sent me to baptize in water, that One said to me, ‘Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on Him, this is the One Who baptizeth in the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴“And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

January 20th – Civil Calendar
January 7th – Church Calendar

1. St. John the Baptist.

John’s greatest role during his life was enacted on the day of the Theophany, and because of this the Church has, from the earliest times, dedicated the day following that feast to his memory. This day is also connected with an event involving the hand of the Forerunner. The Evangelist Luke desired to take John’s body from Sebaste, where the great prophet had been beheaded by Herod, to Antioch, his own birthplace. He succeeded, though, in acquiring and taking only one hand, which was kept in Antioch till the tenth century. It was then moved to Constantinople, whence it disappeared during the Turkish occupation.

St. John is commemorated several times during the year, but his greatest feast is on this day, January 7th. Among the Gospel-figures surrounding the Savior, the person of John the Baptist holds a very special place, by the manner of his birth in this world and of his earthly life, by his role of baptizer of men to repentance and his Baptism of the Messiah, and lastly, by the tragic manner of his departure from this world. He was of such moral purity that he indeed deserved the name ‘angel’*, as he was named in the Scriptures, rather than being thought of as just a mortal man. St. John differs from all the other prophets in that he had the joy of showing forth to the world the One Whom he had foretold.

About the hand of St. John: it is related that each year, on his feast day, the archbishop would bring it out before the people. Sometimes the hand appeared open, and sometimes clenched. In the first case it indicated that it would be a fertile year, and in the second that it would be a year of famine.

* The word ‘messenger’ is, in Greek, ‘angelos’. See Malachi 3:1; Matt. 11:10. —Tr.

2. The Holy New-Martyr Athanasius.

This martyr of Christ was a poor and simple man, but was rich in faith and in wisdom through the Spirit of God. On one occasion he was inadvertently involved in a quarrel with a Turk. The Turk was educated and adroit with words, but Athanasius strove with all his might to present and uphold the truth of the Christian Faith and its superiority over Islam. They then parted. On the following day, Athanasius was summoned to trial, and found the Turk standing there as his accuser. When the judge called on Athanasius to repudiate his faith and embrace Islam, as he had given the impression of declaring to his companion of the previous day, Athanasius cried out: ‘I would die a thousand deaths before I would deny the Faith of Christ!’ He was therefore condemned to death and beheaded in the year 1700. His body was buried in the Church of St. Paraskeve in Smyrna, the city of his execution.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘The whole man is not outwardly visible,’ says St Basil the Great. As one house is like another, so it is with the external appearance of a man. But a house receives honor from him who inhabits it, as likewise does a man from the spirit within him. It is easily apparent to bodily sight that the house is not the householder, but only the place where the householder lives; but it is only clear to spiritual sight that the body is not the man but only the dwelling his soul inhabits.

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.