Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 172]. Brethren:

2 ¹⁴Thanks be to God Who always causeth us to triumph in the Christ, and maketh manifest the fragrance of the knowledge of Him by us in every place. ¹⁵For we are to God a sweet smelling fragrance of Christ in those being saved and in those perishing: ¹⁶to some on the one hand an odor of death to death, and to others an odor of life to life. And who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we are not as the many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before the face of God speak we in Christ.

3 ¹Do we begin again to commend ourselves? If not, do we need, as some, epistles of commendation to you or commendatory ones from you? ²Ye are our epistle, which hath been inscribed in our hearts, known and read by all men, ³since it is manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, which hath not been inscribed with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in stony tablets, but in fleshy tablets of the heart.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 95]. The Lord said to those Jews who had come to Him:

23 ²³“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye tithe the mint and the anise and the cummin, and ye leave the weightier matters of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave aside those others. ²⁴“Blind guides, who strain out the gnat, but swallow the camel! ²⁵“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but within they are full of plunder and incontinence. ²⁶“Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and the dish, that the outside of them might become clean also. ²⁷“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like tombs which have been whitewashed, which on the one hand appear beautiful outwardly, but on the other hand they are full of the bones of the dead and of all uncleanness within. ²⁸“Thus ye also on the one hand appear righteous to men outwardly, but on the other hand ye are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness within.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Forefeast of the Dormition, the Prophet Micah, and the translation of the precious relics of our venerable Father Theodosios, Abbot of the Kiev Caves.

Epistle

For the venerable Father:

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.

or

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§§ 176, 177]. Brethren:

4 ⁶It is God Who said, “Let there be light [cf. Gen. 1:3]” to shine out of darkness, Who shined in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the preeminence of the power may be of God, and not from us. ⁸In every way we are afflicted, but not straitened; we are at a loss, but not utterly at a loss; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed— ¹⁰always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. ¹¹For we, the living, are always being delivered to death on account of Jesus, that also the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. ¹²So that indeed death energizeth itself in us, but life in you. ¹³But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which hath been written: “I believed, wherefore I spoke [Ps. 115(116):1(10)],” we also believe, and therefore speak, ¹⁴knowing that the One Who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also through Jesus, and shall present us with you. ¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, which abounded through the majority, might cause the giving of thanks to abound more to the glory of God.

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)

August 27th – Civil Calendar
August 14th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Prophet Micah the Second.

Of the tribe of Judah and from the village of Morasth, from which he took the name ‘the Morasthite,’ he was a contemporary of the prophets Isaias, Amos and Hosea, and the Judean kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. He denounced the vices of his people and denounced also the prophets who prophesied ‘of wine and strong drink’. He foretold the fall of Samaria, which would come about because the city’s elders take a bribe and the priests teach for hire, and prophets divine for money. ‘Therefore shall Sion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps’. But, of all his prophecies, the most important are those of the Messiah, and especially of the place of His birth. He named Bethlehem as the birthplace of the Messiah, ‘whose goings-forth have been from of old, from everlasting’ (5:2). It is not known certainly whether this prophet was killed by the Jews or died peacefully (see Jer. 26:18-19), but it is known that he was buried in his village, and that his relics were found, together with the relics of the Prophet Abbakum, in the time of the Emperor Theodosios the Great, by a mysterious revelation received by the Bishop of Eleftheropolis.

2. The Hieromartyr Markellos, Bishop of Apameia.

Born in Cyprus of rich and eminent parents, he was well-educated, and married and had children. After coming to an agreement with his wife and children, now grown, he withdrew to follow the monastic life in Syria. He became known for his compassion, meekness and spiritual learning, because of which the people of Apameia chose him as their bishop. As a bishop, he labored with zeal to bring pagans to the Christian Faith. When an idolatrous temple was burned down, the idolaters seized Markellos, and on the pretext of his having caused it, threw him into the fire, in about 389. We find in St. Markellos’ ‘Life’ that the blessing of water is mentioned, and its use.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Keep yourself from a parental curse, for it is a terrible thing. Value and seek your parents’ blessing, for it will accompany you throughout your life. The wise Sirach says: ‘The blessing of the father establisheth the houses of the children; but the curse of the mother rooteth out foundations’ (Sirach 3:9). The curse with which Noah cursed the descendants of Ham has stayed with them to this day, but the sons of Jacob have had fortune in life, according to their father’s blessing. St. Sergius, as a young man, asked his parents’ blessing to become a monk. His aged parents begged their son to wait and stay with them till their death, and then become a monk. Bishop Hermogenes speaks of an occasion when a son ill-treated his wife. When his mother, in tears, began to chide him for this, the son set on his mother, beat her and cracked her head against the wall. The despairing mother cried out: ‘Lord, let my son be accursed, and receive no blessing from Thee or from me!’ That same day, he began to tremble all over his body, and lived in this state for thirteen whole years, unable even to lift a spoon to his mouth. After thirteen years, he confessed and received Communion, and after that became a little eased and very soon died.

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.