Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Sunday of the Fourth Week

Mode Three — Fourth Eothinon

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans [§ 93]. Brethren:

6 ¹⁸Having been freed from sin, ye were made slaves to righteousness. ¹⁹I speak in human terms on account of the weakness of your flesh. For as ye presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. ²⁰For when ye were slaves of sin, ye were free as to righteousness. ²¹Therefore what fruit were ye having then in the things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²²But now having been freed from sin, and having been made slaves to God, ye have your fruit to sanctification, and the end everlasting life. ²³For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 25]. At that time:

8 ⁵After Jesus entered into Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, beseeching Him, ⁶and saying, “Lord, my servant is laid on a sickbed in the house, a paralytic, being terribly tormented.” ⁷And Jesus saith to him, “I will come and cure him.” ⁸And the centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not fit that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak with a word only, and my servant shall be healed. ⁹“For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goeth; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he cometh; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he doeth it.” ¹⁰And after Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, “Verily I say to you, not even in Israel did I find so great faith. ¹¹“And I say to you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall recline at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the heavens. ¹²“But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the darkness, the outer one; there shall be there the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth.” ¹³And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go thy way; and as thou didst believe, let it be to thee.” And his servant was healed in that hour.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Prophet Amos, and our father among the saints, Jonas, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 318]. Brethren:

7 ²⁶Such a High Priest was fitting for us: holy, guileless, undefiled, Who hath been separated from the sinners and hath become higher than the heavens, ²⁷Who hath no need daily, even as the high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, then for those of the people; for this He did once for all after He offered up Himself. ²⁸For the law appointeth men high priests who have weakness; but the word of the oath, which is after the law, appointeth the Son, Who hath been perfected forever.

8 ¹Now in reference to the things being spoken of, the chief point is: We have such a High Priest, Who sat down on the right of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, ²a Liturgist of the holies and of the tabernacle, the true one, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

Gospel

For the Hierarch:

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 36]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

10 ⁹“I am the door; by Me if anyone should enter, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰“The thief cometh not, except that he might steal, and slay, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. ¹¹“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep. ¹²“But the hireling, who indeed is not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth; and the wolf seizeth them and scattereth the sheep. ¹³“Now the hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling and careth not about the sheep. ¹⁴“I am the good shepherd; and I know those that are Mine, and am known of those that are Mine. ¹⁵“Even as the Father knoweth Me, I also know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶“And I have other sheep which are not of this fold; them also it is needful for Me to bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

June 28th – Civil Calendar
June 15th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Prophet Amos.

Born in the village of Tekoa, close to Bethlehem, he was of simple birth and lived a simple life. Amos was a herdsman for rich men in Jerusalem. But God, Who never looks into ‘who’s who,’ and judges a man by the purity of his heart and not by his external appearance, the same God Who took Moses and David from their sheep to make them leaders of the nation; this same God also took Amos to be His prophet. Amos rebuked King Uzziah and his pagan priests for their idolatry and turned the people from the worship of the golden calves, teaching them to worship the one, only and living God. When Amaziah, the chief of the pagan priests, began to persecute him, he prophesied the triumph of the Assyrians over Israel, the slaying of King Jeroboam and Amaziah’s sons and the defiling of his wife by the Assyrian soldiers before his own eyes, because Amaziah had led the nation into adultery with idols. And so it all came to pass. The son of the priest struck the prophet on the forehead with a staff so forcefully that he fell down. He was carried, barely alive, to his village of Tekoa, where he surrendered his holy soul to God. He lived in the 8th century before Christ.

2. The Holy Martyr Vitus, with Modestus and Crescentia.

St. Vitus was born in Sicily of eminent pagan parents. Modestus was his tutor and Crescentia his governess. St. Vitus was baptized early, and when only twelve years old, began to live an intensive ascetic life. Angels appeared to him, instructing him and encouraging him in his labors, and he was himself as radiant and handsome as an angel of God. A judge who beat him had the flesh of his arm wither away, but Vitus healed it by his prayers. His father was blinded when he saw twelve angels in his room ‘with eyes like stars and faces like lightning,’ but Vitus restored his sight by his prayers. When his father sought to kill him, an angel appeared to him and took him to Lucania on the bank of the River Silaris, together with Modestus and Crescentia. St. Vitus performed many miracles there for the sick and insane. He went to Rome at the summons of the Emperor Diocletian and drove out an evil spirit from his son. Far from rewarding him, the emperor tortured him cruelly when he would not bow down before mute idols, but the Lord delivered him from torture and returned him to Lucania by His invisible arm, and there he and Modestus and Crescentia entered into rest in the Lord. St. Vitus’ relics are preserved in Prague.

3. Our Holy Father Doulas.

He lived a holy life in an Egyptian monastery. Some of the brethren living in the monastery falsely accused him of blasphemy out of envy towards him, saying that he had stolen from the church things they had themselves taken. The innocent Doulas was stripped of his habit and handed over to the governor for trial. The prince had him flogged and would have cut off his hands, according to the law for such offences, but Doulas’ fellow-monks repented and declared his innocence. He returned to his monastery after twenty years of exile and humiliation, and went to his rest in the Lord on the third day. His body disappeared in a miraculous way.

4. The Holy Martyr Lazar, Prince of Serbia.

He was one of the greatest men of Serbia who ruled the kingdom after King Dušan. Upon the death of King Uroš, Lazar was crowned King of Serbia by Patriarch Ephraim. He sent a delegation to Constantinople, including a monk called Isaias, to plead for the removing of the anathema from the Serbian people. He went to war on several occasions against the Turkish pasha, finally clashing with the Turkish king, Amurat, at Kosovo on June 15th, 1389, being slain there. His body was taken to Ravanica near Ćupria, a foundation of his, and buried there, but was later taken to New Ravanica in Srem. During the Second World War, in 1942, it was taken to Belgrade and placed in the Cathedral, where it is preserved to this day, and offers comfort and healing to all who turn to him in prayer. He restored Hilandar and Gornjak, built Ravanica and the Lazarica in Kruševac and was the founder of St. Panteleimon, the Russian monastery on the Holy Mountain, as well as numerous other churches and monasteries.

5. St. Ephraim (Jefrem), Patriarch of Serbia.

The son of a priest, he had from his boyhood hungered for a spiritual and ascetic life. He ran away to the Holy Mountain when his parents wished him to marry, and returned later to live in a canyon of the River Ibar, and then at Dečani. When rivalry and fighting for precedence broke out in the state and also, unhappily, in the Church, the synod chose Ephraim as patriarch in place of the deceased Sava, in 1375. When he was informed of their choice, he broke into bitter weeping, but could not refuse. He crowned Prince Lazar in 1382, then renounced his own throne, handing it on to Spiridon, and withdrew once again into solitude. But, upon Spiridon’s death in 1388, Prince Lazar besought him to shoulder the burden once again. He led the Serbian Church through the difficult period of the defeat at Kosovo and until his death in 1400. He was eighty-eight when he went to the Lord Whom he loved. His relics are preserved in the monastery at Peć.

FOR CONSIDERATION

It is not always easy to conquer the spirit of vanity and love of praise. Only the greatest spiritual fathers have succeeded in this, by God’s grace, a ceaseless vigilance over their souls and a very delicate spiritual attention and power of discernment. Abba Nisteroes was once walking along a path with one of his brother monks. Suddenly they saw a snake on the path. The brother leapt aside, with the great Nisteroes after him. ‘Are you really afraid as well, father?’ a monk asked Nisteroes. ‘No, my child, I am not afraid; but I had to flee myself, or I would have stayed from the spirit of vanity.’ In other words: If I had remained unmoved, you would have marveled at me and I would have grown vain on that account.

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.