Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Movable Calendar (Paschalion)

Tuesday of the Second 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 Hieromartyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians [§ mid 224]. Brethren:

4 ⁷To each of us was given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. ⁸Wherefore, He saith, “Having ascended on high, He led captivity captive” and “gave gifts to men [cf. Ps. 67(68):19(18)].” ⁹Now that He ascended, what is it except that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰The One Who descended is the same also Who ascended above all of the heavens, in order that He might fill all things. ¹¹And He gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, ¹²for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of ministering, to the building up of the body of the Christ, ¹³until we all might come to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ mid 42]. The Lord said to His disciples:

12 ²⁴“Verily, verily, I say to you, unless the grain of the wheat that falleth into the earth should die, it abideth alone; but if it should die, it beareth much fruit. ²⁵“The one who loveth his life shall lose it; and the one who hateth his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. ²⁶“If anyone serve Me, let him keep on following Me; and where I am, there My servant shall be also. And if anyone serve Me, the Father shall honor him. ²⁷“Now My soul hath been troubled; and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’; but on this account I came to this hour. ²⁸“Father, glorify Thy name.” Then a voice came out of the heaven: “I both glorified it and will glorify it again.” ²⁹The crowd then that stood by and heard it was saying that thunder had occurred; others were saying, “An angel hath spoken to Him.” ³⁰Jesus answered and said, “This voice hath not occurred for My sake, but for your sakes. ³¹“Now is a judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. ³²“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all to Myself.” ³³But He was saying this, signifying by what manner of death He was about to die. ³⁴The crowd answered Him, “We heard out of the law that the Christ abideth forever; and how sayest Thou, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?” ³⁵Then Jesus said to them, “Yet a little while is the light with you. Be walking while ye have the light, that darkness might not overtake you; and indeed the one who walketh in the darkness knoweth not where he goeth. ³⁶“While ye have the light, keep on believing in the light, that ye might become sons of light.” Jesus spoke these things, and departed, and was hidden from them.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

March 8th – Civil Calendar: Non-Leap Year
March 7th – Civil Calendar: Leap Year
February 23rd – Church Calendar

1. The Hieromartyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna.

This great, apostolic man was born a pagan. St. John the Theologian brought him to the Christian Faith and baptized him. Polycarp was left an orphan in early childhood and a noble widow, Kallista, after a vision in a dream, took him in, rearing and educating him as her own son. Polycarp was God-fearing and compassionate from his early years. He made great efforts to emulate the life of St. Boukolos, the then Bishop of Smyrna, and of the Holy Apostles John and Paul, whom he had met and heard. St. Boukolos ordained him priest, and at the time of his death, proclaimed him his heir in Smyrna. The apostolic bishops, who had gathered for Boukolos’ funeral, consecrated Polycarp bishop. From the very beginning he was endued with the power of wonder-working. He cast out the evil spirit from a servant of a prince and put out a great conflagration in Smyrna by his prayers. Seeing these things, many pagans regarded him as one of the gods. He brought rain in a drought, healed sickness, had the gifts of insight and prophecy, and so forth. He suffered in the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Three days before his death, he prophesied: ‘In three days I shall be consumed by fire for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ!’ When, on the third day, the soldiers arrested him and took him for trial, he cried out: ‘May this be the will of the Lord my God!’ When the judge urged him to deny Christ and recognize the Roman gods, Polycarp said: ‘I cannot exchange the better for the worse.’ The Jews especially hated Polycarp and endeavored to have him burned. When they placed him, bound, on the pyre, he prayed long to God. He was very old and grey, and he shone like an angel of God. All the people saw how the flames licked around him but did not touch him. Frightened by such a phenomenon, the pagan judge ordered the executioner to stab him with a lance through the flames. When this was done, a vast flow of blood gushed out and extinguished the whole fire, and his body remained whole and unburned. At the Jews’ persuasion, the judge ordered that Polycarp’s dead body be burned according to the Greek custom, and so they dishonorably burned dead him whom they had failed to burn alive. St. Polycarp suffered in the year 167, on Holy Saturday.

2. Our Holy Father Damian.

A monk of the monastery of Esphigmenou on the Holy Mountain, he was a contemporary and friend of the great Kosmas of Zographou. He lived in asceticism on the mountain of Samareia, between Esphigmenou and Hilandar, and entered peacefully into rest in 1280. A wonderful, fresh aroma arose from his grave for forty days after his death.

FOR CONSIDERATION

St. Polycarp writes the following to the Philippians of a priest, Valentine, who had fallen into the sin of avarice and had embezzled some of the church’s funds: ‘I am greatly distressed about Valentine, who was at one time a priest with us, that he has so forgotten the gifts of his calling. And therefore I pray you, keep yourselves from love of money and be pure and righteous. Restrain yourselves from every vice. He who cannot restrain himself cannot teach others restraint. He who gives himself to avarice defiles himself in idolatry and is counted as a pagan. Who is not aware of God’s judgement? And do we not know that “the saints will judge the world” (1 Cor. 6:2), as Paul teaches? I have noticed nothing like this among you, neither have I heard of it—in you, among whom blessed Paul labored and of whom he speaks with praise at the beginning of his Epistle (to the Philippians). He praised you among all the churches, when we did not yet know Him (i.e. Polycarp and the inhabitants of Smyrna). And therefore I am very greatly distressed, my brethren, about Valentine and his wife. May God grant them true repentance. But be ye wise in this, and “count them not as enemies” (II Thess. 3:15), but endeavor to correct them as suffering and prodigal members, that your whole body may be healthy. Treating them thus, you will yourselves be further built up.’ Thus the saints dealt with sinners: cautiously and beneficently. Cautiously, that others might be preserved from like sin; beneficently, that the sinner might be corrected and saved.

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.