Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Wednesday of the Thirty-Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second General Epistle of Saint Peter [§ 68 A].

3 ¹Beloved, this second epistle, I now write to you, in which I stir up your sincere mind ²to be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, ³knowing this first, that during the last days mockers shall come, walking according to their own desires, ⁴and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue thus as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵For this escapeth their notice willingly: that by the word of God were there heavens of old, and an earth having stood together out of water and in water, ⁶by which the world of that time, having been deluged by water, perished. ⁷But the present heavens and the earth, which have been laid up in store by the same word, are being kept for fire until a day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. ⁸But, beloved, let not this one thing escape you, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹The Lord is not slow as to the promise, as some deem slowness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing to have any perish, but to have all come to repentance. ¹⁰But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a rushing sound, and the elements, being burned with intense heat, shall be dissolved; and the earth and the works in it shall be burned completely. ¹¹Therefore, because of all these things being dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy modes of life and acts of piety, ¹²expecting and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of the Lord, by reason of which the heavens, being set on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements, being burned with intense heat, shall be melted! ¹³But according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

¹⁴Wherefore, beloved, looking for these things, earnestly endeavor to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless; ¹⁵and be deeming that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation, even as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom which was given to him, wrote to you, ¹⁶as also in all his epistles, speaking in them concerning these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable twist, as they do also the rest of Scriptures, to their own destruction.

¹⁷Ye therefore, beloved, since ye know these things beforehand, be on your guard lest, having been led away by the error of the lawless, ye should fall from your own steadfastness; ¹⁸but keep on increasing in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 61]. The Lord said to His disciples:

13 ²⁴“In those days, after that affliction, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light; ²⁵“and the stars shall be falling from the heaven, and the powers which are in the heavens shall be shaken. ²⁶“And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷“And then He shall send forth His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth unto the uttermost part of the heaven. ²⁸“Now learn the parable from the fig tree: Whenever its branch at once should become tender and put forth leaves, ye know that the summer is near; ²⁹“thus also ye, whenever ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that it is near, even at the doors. ³⁰“Verily I say to you that in no wise shall this generation pass away until all these things take place. ³¹“The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but My words in no wise shall pass away.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Afterfeast of the Meeting of the Lord, and our holy father, Parthenios, Bishop of Lampsakos on the Hellespont, and our holy Father Luke of Hellas.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

February 20th – Civil Calendar
February 7th – Church Calendar

1. St. Parthenios, Bishop of Lampsacus.

He was the son of a deacon from the city of Melitopolis. He knew the words of the Gospel by heart from his early youth, and strove to fulfill them. Settling beside a lake, he caught fish, sold them and shared the proceeds with the poor. By God’s providence, he was chosen as bishop of Lampsacus. He cleansed the city of paganism, closed the temples dedicated to idol-worship, built many churches and strengthened the faithful. He healed all manner of sickness through prayer, and was especially powerful over spirits. At one time when he was about to drive the evil spirit out of a madman, the evil spirit begged him not to. ‘I will give you another man, into whom you can enter and in whom you can dwell,’ Parthenios told him. ‘And who is that man?’ ‘I am he,’ replied the saint, ‘Come and make your abode in me’. Hearing this, the evil spirit fled as though burned by fire, crying out: ‘How can I enter into the house of God?’ St. Parthenios lived long and showed in his deeds the greatness of his love for God and man. He entered into the eternal peace of Christ in the 4th century.

2. Our Holy Father Luke of Hellas.

Luke was born in Castorius. Even as a child, he had no desire to taste meat, and spent the whole of his life with purity and prayer. One day he went to sow his field with wheat. On the way, he gave the greater part of the wheat to a poor man and the lesser part, which remained to him, he sowed. God provided that, from this small amount of seed, there came a greater harvest than had previously come from the whole amount. After that, Luke ran away from his mother and entered a monastery. His widowed mother prayed ardently to God to reveal to her where her son was to be found, and God heard her prayer. The abbot of that monastery dreamed three times in succession that a woman was vehemently accusing him of having taken her only son. The abbot then ordered Luke to return at once to his mother. Luke went and saw his mother, but once again left her, this time for good. He labored on a mountain called ‘John’s Mountain’. He prayed at night and worked in the gardens and fields by day, not for himself but for the poor and the visitors, himself living only on barley bread. He was endowed by God with wonder-working gifts, and entered peacefully into rest in the year 946. From time to time, myrrh flowed from his relics.

3. Our Holy Mother Mastridia.

She lived a life of great asceticism in Jerusalem. A young man who saw her began to pester her, so to save them both from sin she took some soaked beans in a basket and went off into the desert. There she spent seventeen years, during which time, by the power of God, the beans did not come to an end nor her clothing wear out. She entered peacefully into rest in about 580.

4. The Thousand and Three Martyrs of Nikomedia

They suffered in the reign of Diocletian.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Take on yourself some penance for the sin of others. If you have condemned or punished another, take some penance on yourself. Suffer a little, voluntarily, for the sins of sinners. That is pleasing to God. The saints knew this mystery when they condemned themselves for the sins of others. Even non-Christian peoples have some grasp of this. In China, for instance, there is the following custom: when the executioner beheads a criminal condemned to death, he goes to the judge and reports that the sentence has been carried out. The judge gives him a silver piece for killing the criminal, and orders that he receive forty strokes of the lash for killing a man. The Christian saints had a profound understanding of the mystery of sin and the unrighteousness of man. Each human sin had for them a history as long as that stretching back from us to Adam.

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.