Daily Devotional

Saturday, June 8, 2030 (NS), May 26, 2030 (OS)

No Fasting.

Saturday of the Sixth Week

The commemoration of the holy Apostle Karpos of the Seventy.

Jump to Prologue

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Sixth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 43]. In those days:

20 ⁷On the first day of the week, after the disciples gathered together to break bread, Paul, who was about to depart on the morrow, kept on discoursing to them; and he was extending the discourse until midnight. ⁸And there were a considerable number of lamps in the upper room where they were assembled. ⁹And a certain young man, by name Eftychos, who sat on the window sill, was borne down by deep sleep. As Paul discoursed yet longer, because he was borne down by sleep, he fell down from the third story, and was taken up dead. ¹⁰And Paul went down, and fell upon him, and having embraced him, said, “Cease being clamorous; for his life is in him.” ¹¹And after he went up, and broke bread and tasted food, he conversed for a considerable time until dawn, and so he went forth. ¹²And they brought the boy alive, and were not a little comforted.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 48]. The Lord said to His disciples:

14 ¹⁰“The words which I speak to you I speak not from Myself; but the Father Who abideth in Me, He doeth the works. ¹¹“Keep on believing Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me; otherwise keep on believing Me on account of the works themselves. ¹²“Verily, verily, I say to you, the one who believeth in Me, the works which I do shall that one do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to My Father. ¹³“And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, this will I do, that the Father might be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴“If ye should ask anything in My name, I will do it.

¹⁵“If ye love Me, keep My commandments. ¹⁶“And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever— ¹⁷“the Spirit of the truth, Whom the world is not able to receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him; but ye know Him, for He abideth by you, and shall be in you. ¹⁸“I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you. ¹⁹“Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no longer, but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also. ²⁰“In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. ²¹“The one who hath My commandments and keepeth them, that one is the one who loveth Me. And the one who loveth Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Apostle Karpos of the Seventy.

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 131]. Brethren:

4 ⁹I think that God showed forth us the apostles last, as condemned to death; for we became a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are held in honor, but we are dishonored. ¹¹Until the present hour, we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are being buffeted, and never at rest. ¹²And we toil working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we bear up; ¹³being evilly spoken of, we beseech. We became as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all until now. ¹⁴I do not write these things shaming you, but admonishing you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For if ye have myriads of tutors in Christ, yet ye have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel. ¹⁶Therefore, I beseech you, keep on becoming imitators of me.

Gospel

No reading given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

June 8th – Civil Calendar
May 26th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostle Carpus.

One of the Seventy, he was a follower and companion of the Apostle Paul, who installed him as Bishop of Varna in Thrace. But he also preached the Gospel in Crete, where he was host to St. Dionysius the Areopagite. St. Dionysius testifies that he was a man with an exceptionally pure mind, of great humility and guilelessness. He further relates how the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to Carpus in a vision with His angels, and how he never began the Liturgy without first receiving a heavenly vision. He endured many assaults for the name of Christ, and finally suffered at the hands of the faithless Jews and was murdered. His soul entered into the kingdom of God, to delight forever in the vision of the Lord in glory.

2. The Holy Apostle Alphaeus.

He was the father of two of the Twelve Apostles: Iakovos the son of Alphaeus, and Matthew the Evangelist. He entered peacefully into rest.

3. Our Holy Father John of Psychaita.

He left the world at an early age and retired to the Lavra of Psychaita in Constantinople, where he labored in asceticism for many years for the love of Christ. He was exiled in the eighth century for his veneration of the holy icons.

4. The Holy New-Martyr Alexander of Thessalonica.

This martyr of Christ’s was born in Thessalonica during the Turkish oppression. He was tricked by the Turks as a young man into accepting Islam, and at first his conscience did not trouble him for such an act, and he went on pilgrimage with some other Moslem pilgrims and became a dervish. But, living as a dervish in Thessalonica, he began to repent bitterly, and in his repentance the thought came to him that there was no way in which he could cleanse himself from the terrible sin except with his own blood. So, having repented and resolved on martyrdom, he appeared before the Turks dressed as a Christian. They threw him into prison and put him to various tortures. But Alexander would only cry out: ‘I was born a Christian, and as a Christian I shall die!’ Finally the Turks sentenced him to death, which filled the repentant Alexander with joy, realizing that the sentence was a sign of God’s forgiveness of his sins and acceptance of his sacrifice. He was slain by the sword in Smyrna in 1794, and was glorified in the Church both in heaven and on earth.

FOR CONSIDERATION

We must not desire the death of a sinner, but his repentance. Nothing so saddens the Lord Who suffered on the Cross for sinners as when we pray to Him for the death of a sinner and his removal from our path. It once happened that the Apostle Carpus lost patience and began to pray God to send death upon two sinful men, one a pagan and the other an apostate from the Faith. The Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Behold, here I am; ready to be crucified again for the salvation of men.’ St. Carpus related this event to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote it down as a lesson for all in the Church that we must pray for the salvation of sinners and not for their destruction. For the Lord ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (II Peter 3:9).

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.