Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Second Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 15]. In those days:

5 ²¹The apostles, having heard that, entered into the temple during the early morning and began teaching. But the high priest came and those with him, and they called together the sanhedrin and all the council of elders of the sons of Israel, and sent off to the prison to have them brought. ²²But after the officers came and found them not in the prison, they returned and reported, ²³saying, “Indeed we found the prison shut with all security, and the guards standing outside before the doors; but after we opened them, we found no one inside.” ²⁴Now when the priest and the captain of the temple-guard and the chief priests heard these words, they were quite at a loss concerning them and what this would become. ²⁵But a certain one came and reported to them, saying, “Behold, the men whom ye yourselves put in the prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” ²⁶Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they were fearing the people, lest they should be stoned. ²⁷And after they brought them, they stood them in the sanhedrin. And the high priest questioned them, ²⁸saying, “We did charge you by a command not to teach on this name, did we not? And behold, ye have made Jerusalem full of your teaching, and intend to bring the blood of this Man upon us.” ²⁹But Peter and the apostles answered and said, “It is needful to obey God rather than men. ³⁰“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, Whom ye yourselves laid hands upon and hanged on a tree. ³¹“This One did God exalt with His right hand to be a Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. ³²“And we are His witnesses of these words, and also the Holy Spirit Whom God gave to those who obey Him.” ³³Now after they heard that, their hearts were sawn asunder, and they were taking counsel to kill him.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 19]. At that time:

6 ¹⁴The people, having seen what sign Jesus did, began to say, “This is truly the Prophet Who cometh into the world.” ¹⁵Then Jesus, having known that they were about to come and seize Him in order that they might make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain Himself alone.

¹⁶And when it became evening, His disciples went down to the sea; ¹⁷and having embarked into the ship, they were going across the sea to Capernaum. And already it had become dark, and Jesus had not come to them. ¹⁸And the sea was stirred up by a great wind blowing. ¹⁹Then after they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia, they see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the ship; and they became afraid. ²⁰But He saith to them, “I am; cease being afraid.” ²¹Then they were willing to receive Him into the ship; and straightway the ship came to be at the land to which they were going.

²²On the morrow, the crowd which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one into which His disciples entered, and that Jesus did not enter together with His disciples into the little boat, but that His disciples went away alone— ²³but there came little boats from Tiberias, near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord gave thanks. ²⁴When the crowd therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves also embarked into the ships and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. ²⁵And after they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when didst Thou arrive here?” ²⁶Jesus answered them and said, “Verily, verily, I say to you, ye seek Me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. ²⁷“Cease working for the meat which perisheth, but for the food which abideth to everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give to you; for this One did God the Father seal.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Nine Martyrs of Kyzicus, Theognis, Rufus, Antipater, Theostichos, Artemas, Magnos, Theodotos, Thavmasios, and Philemon (commemorated on Sl. calendar on the 29^th of April). The commemoration of the holy Apostles of the Seventy, Jason and Sosipater, and their companions (commemorated on Gk. calendar on the 29^th of April). The commemoration of the holy Martyrs Maximos, Quintillian, and Dada at Dorostolum (commemorated on Gk. calendar on the 13^th of April).

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

May 11th – Civil Calendar
April 28th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostles Jason and Sosipater, and the Virgin Kerkyra.

The first two were among the Seventy Apostles, and the last was the daughter of the king of the island of Corfu. The Apostle Paul mentions Jason and Sosipater (Rom. 16:21), and calls them his kinsmen. Jason was born in Tarsus, as was the Apostle Paul himself, and Sosipater in Achaea. The first was nominated by the apostles as Bishop of Tarsus and the second as Bishop of Iconium. Travelling and preaching the Gospel, these two apostles came to the island of Corfu, where they succeeded in building a church dedicated to St. Stephen the Protomartyr and in bringing some unbelievers to the Church. The king of the island threw them into prison, where there were seven robbers already imprisoned: Satorninus, Jakischolus, Faustian, Januarius, Marsalus, Evphrasius and Mamminus. The apostles brought all seven of them to the Christian Faith, making wolves into lambs. The king commanded that these seven be put to death in boiling pitch, and they thus received the wreath of martyrdom. Seeking to disgrace Jason and Sosipater, the king had them dragged through the streets by a horse at a speed calculated to be slow enough to bruise them without killing them. When the king’s daughter, Kerkyra, saw this, she looked upon the wretchedness of her father with disdain, and discovering the reason for it, she visited them in the prison, where she was converted. She gave all her jewels away to the poor and proclaimed herself a Christian to her father. The king was filled with wrath against his daughter and shut her up in a separate prison. Then, failing to turn her from Christ, he ordered that the prison be burned down. The prison burned to the ground, but the maiden remained alive. Seeing this wonder, many of the people were baptized. The furious king ordered that his daughter be bound to a tree and killed with arrows. Those who had come to believe in Christ fled from the terrible king to a nearby island and hid themselves. The king set off in a boat to arrest them, but his boat overturned in the sea and thus the unrighteous perished, as Pharaoh aforetime. The succeeding king, Donatios, continued in the persecution. He ordered Sosipater to be put to death. It was presumed that Jason would follow his comrade in death, but the king decided to question the surviving partner first. A gnawing sense of guilt precipitated the meeting of the two, at which Jason succeeded in converting Donatios to the Christian Faith. Not long after this, the twelve-year-old daughter of Donatios was stricken with a fatal illness, but was cured when Jason knelt in prayer on her behalf. Jason continued to work for our Savior until his death at the age of sixty on April 28th, the day on which Sosipater had died for Christ.

2. The Holy Martyrs Maximus, Dada and Quintillian.

Suffering in the time of Diocletian, they were condemned and tortured by the commander Tarquinius. After imprisonment and torture, they were beheaded.

3. The Holy Martyr Tibald.

A Slav from Pannonia, he was terribly tortured for the Faith in the time of Diocletian, and suffered in Tsibal.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The mystery of our salvation is fulfilled in God’s appearing among men in human flesh. Meliton of Sardis writes: ‘The works of Christ after His Baptism showed and demonstrated to the world that His divinity is hidden within His flesh. Being God, He was also perfect man. He revealed His two natures to us: His divinity by His miracles, performed in the three years after His Baptism, and His humanity through those thirty years when bodily nature hid the signs of His divinity, although He was truly the pre-eternal God.’ The means of uniting the divinity with the humanity is difficult to comprehend, but the event of the appearing of God among men is perfectly comprehensible from the point of view of God’s love for man. As an event, the world is not more comprehensible—it can be said to be even less comprehensible than the event of events, the incarnation of God.

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.