Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

The Saturday of the Third Week of the Great Fast

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 325]. Brethren:

10 ³²Remind yourselves of the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great contest of sufferings: ³³partly, being made a show of both by reproaches and affliction; and partly, having become partners of those who conducted themselves thus. ³⁴For ye also sympathized with those in bonds and ye yourselves accepted the seizure of your possessions with joy, knowing in yourselves that ye have in the heavens a better and abiding possession. ³⁵Do not begin therefore to cast away your boldness which hath great recompense. ³⁶For ye have need of patience, that, after ye do the will of God, ye might receive for yourselves the promise. ³⁷“For yet a very little while, the One Who cometh will come, and will not delay [cf. Hab. 2:3]. ³⁸“Now the just shall live by faith; and if one should draw himself back, My soul hath no pleasure in him [cf. Hab. 2:4].”

Another Reading for Saturday of the Third Week of the Great Fast in Commemoration of the Departed

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians [§ 270].

4 ¹³Brethren, we do not wish you to be ignorant concerning those who have fallen asleep, that ye may not be grieving, even as the rest who have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and is risen, so also those who fell asleep through Jesus will God bring with Him. ¹⁵For we say this to you by the word of the Lord, that we the living, the ones remaining over until the coming of the Lord, in no wise shall precede those who fell asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout of command, with a voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. ¹⁷Then we the living, the ones remaining over, shall be carried off together with them in clouds to a meeting of the Lord in the air, and so shall we always be with the Lord.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 8]. At that time:

2 ¹⁴As Jesus passed by, He saw Levi, the son of Alphæos, sitting at the custom-house, and saith to him, “Follow thou Me.” And he rose up and followed Him. ¹⁵And it came to pass, as He was reclining at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners also were reclining together at table with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. ¹⁶And after the scribes and the Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they were saying to His disciples, “Why is it that He eateth and drinketh with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷And Jesus, having heard it, saith to them, “They who are strong have no need of a physician, but they who are ill; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Commemoration of the Departed

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 16]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

5 ²⁴“Verily, verily, I say to you, that the one who heareth My word and believeth the One Who sent Me hath everlasting life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed over out of death into life. ²⁵“Verily, verily, I say to you, that an hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live. ²⁶“For even as the Father hath life in Himself, so He also gave to the Son to have life in Himself, ²⁷“and He also gave to Him authority to execute judgment. That He is Son of Man, ²⁸“cease marvelling at this; for an hour is coming in which all those in the graves shall hear His voice, ²⁹“and shall go forth—they who did good things to a resurrection of life, but they who practised bad things to a resurrection of condemnation. ³⁰“I am not able to do anything of Myself. Even as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the One Who sent Me, the Father.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the translation of the relics of our holy father among the saints, Nikephoros, the Confessor and Patriarch of Constantinople.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

March 26th – Civil Calendar
March 13th – Church Calendar

1. St. Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople. (c. 758-829).

He governed the holy Church with wisdom and zeal as the greatest arch-pastor of Constantinople. When Leo the Armenian made his stand against icons, Nikephoros opposed the Emperor; first counselling him and then denouncing him. For this the accursed emperor exiled him to the island of Prokonnesos. There was a monastery on that island, which Nikephoros himself had built in honor of St. Theodore. And this confessor of the Orthodox Faith spent thirteen years there, then died and went to the Lord in 827. Then all the iconoclast emperors perished, and Michael, with his mother Theodora, came to the imperial throne in 842, and Methodius became patriarch. Then, in 846, the relics of St. Nikephoros were translated from Prokonnesos to Constantinople and placed first in the Church of Hagia Sophia, from which he had been driven in his lifetime, and then in the Church of the Holy Apostles. The main commemoration of this great hierarch is on June 2nd, but on March 13th is commemorated the finding and translation of his incorrupt relics. St. Nikephoros was driven from Constantinople on March 13th, and on March 13th, nineteen years later, his relics were brought back to his patriarchal seat.

2. The Holy Martyr Christina of Persia.

She was harshly tortured in Persia in the 4th century for her unfaltering confession of the Christian Faith. The torturers whipped her so terribly that she died from exhaustion. Her soul parted from her martyred body and went to dwell in the eternal joy of Christ her King and Lord.

3. The Hieromartyr Publius.

This priest and martyr was successor in the episcopate in Athens to the famous Dionysius the Areopagite. As bishop, he was tortured by unbelievers and beheaded in the 2nd century. For a brief time of torture he inherited eternal life.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Great Christians are those who have great love for Christ. Oh, how truly great Christians our God-bearing fathers and the martyrs were! In our time, it is difficult for many to imagine this. Here is what one of those saints, St. Simeon the New Theologian, confessed in his monastery before all the monks. Speaking from his experience, how it bore out the truth of the Lord’s words: ‘My yoke is easy and My burden is light,’ he said: ‘Believe me, when I have fled to God my Savior, I have not encountered anything hard or unbearable.... I had a great and unbearable sadness only because I couldn’t find a sufficient means of dying for the love of Christ.’ Are not such souls like flames shut in earthen vessels? Flames are always upright and directed towards heaven. Just take off the lid, and the flame will leap up higher.

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.