Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Thursday of the Nineteenth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Philippians [§ 238]. Brethren:

1 ²⁰In nothing shall I be ashamed, but in all boldness, as always, also now Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ²²But if I live on in the flesh, this to me is the fruit of labor; and what I shall choose I know not. ²³For I am being constrained by the two, having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, for that is very much better; ²⁴but to abide in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes. ²⁵And having been persuaded of this, I know that I shall stay and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, ²⁶in order that the basis for your boasting might abound in Christ Jesus in me, through my presence with you again. ²⁷Only be conducting yourselves worthily of the Gospel of the Christ, that whether I come and see you or am absent, I might hear of the things concerning you, that ye stand in one spirit, with one soul striving together for the faith of the Gospel.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 23]. At that time:

6 ¹²Jesus went out into the mountain to pray, and He was passing the night in prayer to God. ¹³And when it became day, He called to Himself His disciples. And from them He chose for Himself twelve, whom He also named apostles: ¹⁴Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; Iakovos and John; Philip and Bartholomew; ¹⁵Matthew and Thomas; Iakovos the son of Alphæos, and Simon who was called Zealot; ¹⁶Judas the brother of Iakovos, and Judas Iscariote, who also became the betrayer. ¹⁷And He came down with them and stood upon a level place. And there was a crowd of His disciples, and a great multitude of the people from all of Judæa and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases— ¹⁸even those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and they were cured. ¹⁹And all the crowd was seeking to touch Him, for power was coming forth from Him and healing all.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of our venerable Father Kyriakos the Anchorite.

Epistle

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.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 24]. At that time:

6 ¹⁷ Jesus stood upon a level place. And there was a crowd of His disciples, and a great multitude of the people from all of Judæa and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases— ¹⁸even those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and they were cured. ¹⁹And all the crowd was seeking to touch Him, for power was coming forth from Him and healing all. ²⁰And He lifted up His eyes to His disciples, and began to say:

“Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

²¹“Blessed are ye who hunger now, for ye shall be filled.

Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh.

²²“Blessed are ye whenever men hate you, and whenever they separate you, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.

²³“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in the heavens.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

October 12th – Civil Calendar
September 29th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Father Kyriakos (Cyriacus) the Solitary.

Born in Corinth of parents named John (a priest) and Evdoxia, he was a kinsman of the local bishop, Peter. He was made reader in the cathedral by the bishop while still a young man. Reading the holy Scriptures, the young Kyriakos marveled at God’s providence, how it glorified every true servant of the living God and ordered the salvation of the human race. At the age of eighteen, his desire for the spiritual life led him to Jerusalem. There he entered the monastery of a godly man called Evstorgios, who grounded him in the monastic life. He then went off to St. Efthymios, who discerned in him future spiritual greatness, clothed him in the Great Habit and sent him to the Jordan, to St. Gerasimos, where Kyriakos spent nine years. After Gerasimos’ death, he returned to St. Efthymios’ monastery, where he remained in silence for ten years. After this he moved from place to place, fleeing the praise of men. He lived in ascetic labor also in the community of St. Chariton, where he finished his earthly course, having lived for a hundred and nine years. A glorious ascetic and wonder-worker, St. Kyriakos was massive and strong of body, and stayed thus in great old age, despite strict fasts and vigils. In the desert, he sometimes lived for years only on raw vegetables. He was very zealous for the Orthodox Faith, denouncing heresies, especially the heresy of Origen. Of himself he said that, while he was a monk, the sun never saw him eat or be angry with any man. According to the rule of St. Chariton, the monks ate only once a day, after sunset. Kyriakos was a great light, a pillar of Orthodoxy, the boast of monks, a mighty healer of the sick and a gentle comforter of the sorrowful. Living long in asceticism and giving aid to many, he entered into the eternal joy of his Lord in 557.

2. The Holy Martyrs Dada and Gobdelas.

Dada was a Persian noble and a kinsman of King Sapor, and Gobdelas was the son of the same king. When St. Dada openly confessed his faith in Christ, King Sapor ordered that he be harshly tortured. During these tortures, Dada worked great miracles in Christ’s name, which made such an impression on Gobdelas that he also embraced the Christian Faith. The pagan king did not spare his son, but gave him over to harsh torture. Both Dada and Gobdelas glorified God in their patient endurance and many miracles, and gave their souls to God under the tortures. They suffered in the fourth century. With them there suffered—for they had also come to faith in Christ—Gobdelas’ sister Kasdoa and Gargal, the chief of the pagan priests.

3. St. Theophanes the Merciful.

A wealthy citizen of Gaza, he was so merciful that he gave away his goods to the poor and himself became one of them. Near the end of his life, he was stricken with dropsy and died of this sickness. A healing myrrh flowed from his body, by which many of the sick were healed.

4. St. Mary of Palestine.

She was at first a Psalm-reader of the Psalter in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, but being beautiful, she was a source of scandal to the sinful-minded. In order not to be a cause of sin in others, Mary withdrew to the wilderness of Souka with a basket of beans and a flask of water. She spent eighteen years in the desert, and by God’s power, never lacked either beans or water. Disciples of St. Kyriakos found her during her lifetime, and later buried her.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Many people, from ignorance, exert themselves to avoid suffering in old age and terminal illness rather than to avoid the pains of hell in the life after old age and death. There was once an unmarried miser who, from year to year, strove to acquire for himself superfluous riches. When he was asked the point of so much toil and acquisition of goods, which were too much for his lifetime, he replied: ‘I’m gathering them for my old age. My goods will tend and feed me in old age and sickness’. His presentiment was soon realized. In old age, a serious and long-lasting sickness fell upon him. He distributed the money he had saved to doctors to heal him, and to servants to look after him and feed him, but the money ran out and the illness continued. His doctors and servants left him, and he fell into despair. His neighbors brought him bread until he died, and he was buried at public expense. Of what use were those goods to him to whom they were given? God did His will in him, and sent upon him that sickness of which he had spoken and for which he had prepared his goods. However, all his goods were unable to ease his sufferings in this world—and by what could he be eased of them in the world to come? By what, if he took with him neither faith nor hope, nor works of mercy, prayer or repentance? Someone saw a departed man in the glory of Paradise, and asked him by what he had become worthy of that glory. The man replied: ‘I was, in my earthly life, the hireling of an evildoer, who never paid me my hire; but I endured everything and served him to the end with hope in God.’ He saw another in eternal glory, and when he asked him, the other replied: ‘I was a leper, and to the end rendered God thanks for that.’ The one, though, who heaped up riches for sickness in his old age, will never be seen by any man in the glory of Paradise in the other world.

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.