Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Twenty-Third Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 185].

8 ¹Brethren, I make known to you the grace of God which had been given in the churches of Macedonia, ²that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep-down poverty abounded to the wealth of their open-handedness. ³For according to their means, I bear witness, and beyond their means, they voluntarily gave, ⁴with much supplication entreating us for the grace and the fellowship of the ministry which is for the saints; ⁵and this they did not as we hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and to us by the will of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 36]. The Lord said:

8 ¹⁶“No one, having lit a lamp, covereth it with a vessel or putteth it underneath a bed, but placeth it upon a lampstand, that they who enter in may see the light. ¹⁷“For nothing is secret which shall not become manifest, nor hidden that shall not be known and come to light. ¹⁸“Be taking heed then how ye hear: for whosoever hath, it shall be given to him; and whosoever hath not, even what he seemeth to have shall be taken away from him.”

¹⁹And His Mother and brethren came to Him, and were not able to meet with Him on account of the crowd. ²⁰And it was reported to Him by some who said, “Thy Mother and Thy brethren are standing outside, wishing to see Thee.” ²¹And He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brethren are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy and venerable Martyr Anastasia the Roman, and our venerable Father Abramios the Recluse, and his niece St. Mary of Mesopotamia.

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 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)

November 11th – Civil Calendar
October 29th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Mother, the Martyr Anastasia the Roman.

She was born in Rome of well-born parents and left an orphan at the age of three. As an orphan, she was taken into a women’s monastery near Rome, where the abbess was one Sophia, a nun of a high level of perfection. After seventeen years, Anastasia was known in the whole neighborhood, to the Christians as a great ascetic and to the pagans as a rare beauty. The pagan administrator of the city, Probus, heard of her and sent soldiers to bring her to him. The good Abbess Sophia counseled Anastasia for two hours on how to keep the Faith, how to resist flattering delusion and how to endure torture. Anastasia said to her: ‘My heart is ready to suffer for Christ; my soul is ready to die for my beloved Jesus.’ Brought before the governor, Anastasia openly proclaimed her faith in Christ the Lord, and when the governor tried to dissuade her from the Faith, first with promises and then with threats, the holy maiden said to him: ‘I am ready to die for my Lord, not once but—oh, if it were only possible!—a thousand times.’ When they stripped her naked, to humiliate her, she cried to the judge: ‘Whip me and cut at me and beat me; my naked body will be hidden by wounds, and my shame will be covered by my blood!’ She was whipped and beaten and cut about. She twice felt a great thirst and asked for water, and a Christian, Cyril, gave her a drink, for which he was blessed by the martyr and beheaded by the pagans. Then her breasts and tongue were cut off, and an angel of God appeared to her and upheld her. She was finally beheaded with the sword outside the city. Blessed Sophia found her body and buried it, and Anastasia was crowned with the wreath of martyrdom under the Emperor Decius (249-251).

2. Our Holy Father Abramios (Abraham) the Recluse and his niece Maria.

Under pressure from his parents, Abramios married, but on the very day of his wedding, he left his bride, his parents, his home and all that he had and went off into solitude to live in strict asceticism. He lived thus for fifty years, only leaving his cell twice in the whole of that time. Once it was at the command of the local bishop, to convert a pagan village to the Christian Faith, and the other was to save his dissolute niece Maria. He entered peacefully into rest in 360, at the age of seventy.

3. Our Holy Father, the Martyr Timothy of Esphigmenou.

From the village of Paraora, in the province of Kessana in Thrace, he was married and had two daughters. His wife was seized by the Turks and converted to Islam, and in order to save her from the harem, he also pretended to become a Turk. Saving his wife, he gave her to a women’s monastery and went off to the Holy Mountain, first to the Lavra and then to Esphigmenou. He desired martyrdom for Christ, like Agathangelos of Esphigmenou, and was beheaded in Jedrene on October 29th, 1820. His body was thrown into a river, but his clothing was taken back to Esphigmenou by the elder Germanos, his spiritual father.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved’ (Matt. 10:22), said the Lord. Faith is the one light that can truly illumine endurance, as endurance for its own sake becomes an unbearable darkness. Faith is a star shining in this darkness; faith softens the sharpness of suffering and bears on its wings all the weight of endurance. St. Abramios offers us a beautiful example of perseverance in endurance. The devil simulated to him various sorts of temptation and terror, plunging him into a tedium that almost got him to the point of leaving the place in which he had settled and moving elsewhere, but Abramios did not want to move and become like an evil demon; he remained in his own place and overcame the devil. The bishop of that area sent Abramios to a pagan village to try to bring it to the Christian Faith. After long resistance, Abramios set off, saying: ‘Let God’s will be done; I’m going under obedience.’ He first built a church in the village and then pulled down the idols before the eyes of the villagers. They thrashed him, and beat him black and blue, leaving him almost dead, and then drove him out of their village, but he prayed to God for them with tears, that God would open the eyes of their hearts to know the truth of Christ. Thus the pagans beat and mocked him without remission for three years, but he prayed constantly to God for them and was not angered against them, ‘enduring in his faith like a firm rock’. Only after three whole years did his toil and tears, his beseeching and faith have their reward, for suddenly the villagers were awakened and went in a group to Abramios. Bowing down before him, they begged him to instruct them in the Christian Faith.

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.