Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Eleventh Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 123]. Brethren:

1 ³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, ⁵that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all utterance and all knowledge, ⁶even as the testimony of the Christ was confirmed in you, ⁷so as to not lack in even one gift of grace, while ye eagerly await the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹Faithful is God, by Whom ye were called into the communion of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 78]. At that time:

19 ³The Pharisees came to Jesus, putting Him to the test and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” ⁴And He answered and said to them, “Ye read, did ye not, that the One Who made them from the beginning ‘made them male and female [Gen. 1:27],’ ⁵“and said, ‘On account of this a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be into one flesh [Gen. 2:24]’? ⁶“Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God yoked together, let not man separate.” ⁷They say to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to divorce her?” ⁸He saith to them, “Moses, in view of your hard-heartedness, permitted you to divorce your wives; but it hath not been so from the beginning. ⁹“And I say to you, that whosoever shall divorce his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and he who marrieth her who hath been divorced, committeth adultery.” ¹⁰His disciples say to Him, “If the case of the man is so with the wife, it is not expedient to marry.” ¹¹But He said to them, “Not all find room for this saying, but those to whom it hath been given: ¹²“for there are eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. The one who is able to find room for it, let him make room.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Forefeast of the Dormition, the Prophet Micah, and the translation of the precious relics of our venerable Father Theodosios, Abbot of the Kiev Caves.

Epistle

For the venerable Father:

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.

or

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§§ 176, 177]. Brethren:

4 ⁶It is God Who said, “Let there be light [cf. Gen. 1:3]” to shine out of darkness, Who shined in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the preeminence of the power may be of God, and not from us. ⁸In every way we are afflicted, but not straitened; we are at a loss, but not utterly at a loss; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed— ¹⁰always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. ¹¹For we, the living, are always being delivered to death on account of Jesus, that also the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. ¹²So that indeed death energizeth itself in us, but life in you. ¹³But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which hath been written: “I believed, wherefore I spoke [Ps. 115(116):1(10)],” we also believe, and therefore speak, ¹⁴knowing that the One Who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also through Jesus, and shall present us with you. ¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, which abounded through the majority, might cause the giving of thanks to abound more to the glory of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 43]. The Lord said to His disciples:

11 ²⁷“All things were delivered to Me by My Father. And no one doth fully know the Son, except the Father; nor doth anyone fully know the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal Him. ²⁸“Come to Me, all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹“Take up My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls. ³⁰“For My yoke is good and My burden is light.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

August 27th – Civil Calendar
August 14th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Prophet Micah the Second.

Of the tribe of Judah and from the village of Morasth, from which he took the name ‘the Morasthite,’ he was a contemporary of the prophets Isaias, Amos and Hosea, and the Judean kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He denounced the vices of his people and denounced also the prophets who prophesied ‘of wine and strong drink’. He foretold the fall of Samaria, which would come about because the city’s elders take a bribe and the priests teach for hire, and prophets divine for money. ‘Therefore shall Sion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps’. But, of all his prophecies, the most important are those of the Messiah, and especially of the place of His birth. He named Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah, ‘whose goings-forth have been from of old, from everlasting’ (5:2). It is not known certainly whether this prophet was killed by the Jews or died peacefully (see Jer. 26:18-19), but it is known that he was buried in his village, and that his relics were found, together with the relics of the Prophet Abbakum, in the time of the Emperor Theodosios the Great, by a mysterious revelation received by the Bishop of Eleftheropolis.

2. The Hieromartyr Markellos, Bishop of Apameia.

Born in Cyprus of rich and eminent parents, he was well-educated, and married and had children. After coming to an agreement with his wife and children, now grown, he withdrew to follow the monastic life in Syria. He became known for his compassion, meekness and spiritual learning, because of which the people of Apameia chose him as their bishop. As a bishop, he labored with zeal to bring pagans to the Christian Faith. When an idolatrous temple was burned down, the idolaters seized Markellos, and on the pretext of his having caused it, threw him into the fire, in about 389. We find in St. Markellos’ ‘Life’ that the blessing of water is mentioned, and its use.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Keep yourself from a parental curse, for it is a terrible thing. Value and seek your parents’ blessing, for it will accompany you throughout your life. The wise Sirach says: ‘The blessing of the father establisheth the houses of the children; but the curse of the mother rooteth out foundations’ (Sirach 3:9). The curse with which Noah cursed the descendants of Ham has stayed with them to this day, but the sons of Jacob have had fortune in life, according to their father’s blessing. St. Sergius, as a young man, asked his parents’ blessing to become a monk. His aged parents begged their son to wait and stay with them till their death, and then become a monk. Bishop Hermogenes speaks of an occasion when a son ill-treated his wife. When his mother, in tears, began to chide him for this, the son set on his mother, beat her and cracked her head against the wall. The despairing mother cried out: ‘Lord, let my son be accursed, and receive no blessing from Thee or from me!’ That same day, he began to tremble all over his body, and lived in this state for thirteen whole years, unable even to lift a spoon to his mouth. After thirteen years, he confessed and received Communion, and after that became a little eased and very soon died.

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.