Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

The Saturday of the Fifth Week of the Great Fast and of the Akathist

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 322]. Brethren:

9 ²⁴The Christ entered not into the holies made by hand, antitypes of the true things, but into the heaven itself, now to be manifested before the face of God on our behalf; ²⁵not in order that He may offer Himself many times, even as the high priest entereth into the holies year by year with blood belonging to another; ²⁶for otherwise it would be necessary for Him many times to have suffered from the foundation of the world; but now, once for all, at the consummation of the ages, He hath been manifested for the setting at nought of sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ²⁷And inasmuch as it is laid up for men to die once, but after this, judgment, ²⁸thus the Christ Who was offered once for all to bear up the sins of many, shall appear the second time without sin to those who await Him unto salvation.

Another Reading for Saturday of the Fifth Week of the Great Fast for the Theotokos

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 320]. Brethren:

9 ¹The first tabernacle also used to have both ordinances of worship and the sanctuary of this world. ²For a tabernacle was furnished: the first in which were both the lampstand and the table, and the laying forth of the loaves, which is called Holy; ³and after the second veil, a tabernacle which is called Holy of Holies, ⁴which hath a golden censer, and the ark of the covenant which hath been covered all around from every side with gold, in which was the golden jar having the manna, and the rod of Aaron that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; ⁵and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, concerning which now is not the time to speak severally. ⁶Now after these things were thus furnished, the priests, on the one hand, enter into the first tabernacle, performing worship services; ⁷on the other hand, into the second, the high priest entereth alone once for all every year, not without blood, which he offereth on behalf of himself and the faults of ignorance of the people.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 35]. At that time:

8 ²⁷Jesus went out, and His disciples, into the villages of Cæsarea Philippi; and on the way He was asking His disciples, saying to them, “Whom do men say that I am?” ²⁸And they answered, “John the Baptist, but others say Elias; and others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹And He saith to them, “But ye, whom do ye say that I am?” And Peter answereth and saith to Him, “Thou art the Christ.” ³⁰And He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him. ³¹And He began to teach them that it is necessary for the Son of Man to suffer many things, and to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and to be killed, and after three days to rise.

Another Reading for the Theotokos

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 54]. At that time:

10 ³⁸Jesus entered into a certain village. And a certain woman, by name Martha, received Him into her house. ³⁹And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat down beside the feet of Jesus, and was listening to His word. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted about much serving, and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, is it no concern to Thee that my sister left me to serve alone? Speak to her therefore that she should help me.” ⁴¹And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things. ⁴²“But there is need of one thing, and Mary chose the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”...

11 ²⁷And it came to pass, as He was speaking these things, a certain woman out of the crowd lifted up her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the breasts which Thou didst suck.” ²⁸But He said, “Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Martyr Matrona of Thessalonica.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

April 9th – Civil Calendar
March 27th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Martyr Matrona.

She was an orphan, and a servant in the house of a Jew in Thessalonica. The wife of this Jew constantly derided Matrona for her faith in Christ, and urged her to cast Christ aside and go to the synagogue. But the humble Matrona went about her work conscientiously, not replying to her mistress and secretly praying to Christ our God. On one occasion the Jewess discovered that Matrona had gone to church unbeknown to her, and demanded, in a great rage, to know why she had gone to the church and not the synagogue. ‘Because God is alive in the Christian Church, but He has departed from the synagogues of the Jews,’ replied Matrona. Enraged by such a courageous answer, the Jewess thrashed her and locked her in a dark chamber, and in addition to that had her bound. But the next day she found her unbound by the power of God and kneeling in prayer, praising God. Then she locked her up again for the second time until she died of hunger. Then that wicked woman took the body of the holy maiden and threw it to the ground from the top of her house. Christians took the body of the martyr and buried it. The bishop, Alexander, when he had learned of the many miracles worked by the holy martyr, built a church over her grave. As for the evil Jewess, she soon received her just reward, when, standing on the same spot from which she had thrown Matrona’s body, she slipped and fell onto the cobbled pavement and was smashed to pieces.

2. Our Holy Father John the Clairvoyant.

He was a carpenter until the age of twenty-five, when, urged on by an unquenchable desire for constant prayer, he took himself off into the desert, where he lived until his death; that is, until the age of ninety. He lived in the body as one without a body. He could look into the heart of every person who came near him and could discover his name, and his thoughts and desires. He foretold the outcome of the Emperor Theodosios’ battles to him; prophesied to nobles, to monks, to anyone at all who was in need, to uncover what was hidden from them in the darkness of future days. A certain prince asked him to receive his wife, who wished to see him. The holy man was not willing to satisfy empty curiosity, so he appeared in a dream to the prince’s wife, and she saw him just as he was. And when the woman described her dream to her husband, he affirmed that such was the appearance of the holy man. He taught every visitor about humility, which is the basic virtue, and always drew his examples from life. He taught how pride makes war against a man of exalted character and brings him to dust and to terrible sins. He endured great assaults from evil spirits. Once Satan appeared to him with a great crowd of demons in the form of shining angels. They pressed him to bow down before Satan, lying to him and telling him that it was Christ. But he answered with great wisdom: ‘Every day I bow down to Jesus Christ my King; if it were He, it would not be necessary for me to bow down to Him at this particular moment.’ After these words, the evil forces disappeared like smoke. He died peacefully, kneeling in prayer, at the age of ninety.

3. Our Holy Father Paphnutios.

He was a disciple of St. Anthony the Great. The holiness of his life brought many sinners (for example, St. Thaïs, Oct 8th) back to the path of repentance, for he was more like a bodiless angel than a carnal man. He entered into rest towards the end of the fourth century.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘He who thinks evil, in him is no cleanness,’ says St. Simeon the New Theologian, and adds: ‘For how can there be a clean heart in one who fouls it with unclean thoughts, as a mirror is darkened by dust?’ Do you see, then, the inaccessible height on which the Christian religion stands in relation to all other religions and worldly theories? He who contemplates evil has in some manner done evil, and is at fault before God and his own soul. It is an insult to God and a loss to self. To be Christian in the true sense means to make an enormous effort to cleanse our hearts and minds from evil thoughts. On what an effort it is, there is a vast amount of teaching (which in our day remains an almost entirely closed book, even to Christians) and a wealth of true experience on the part of holy men and women who have justified this teaching. To cleanse oneself from evil and impure thoughts, this root of all evil, was the goal of all the great ascetics, cave-dwellers and hesychasts.

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.