Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Fifth Sunday of Pascha, or Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

Mode Four — Seventh Eothinon

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 28]. In those days:

For Gk usage, see Acts 11:19-30; for Sl. usage. see Acts 11:19-26, 29, 30.

11 ¹⁹The apostles, who were scattered because of the affliction that arose about Stephen, went abroad as far as Phœnicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews only. ²⁰But some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, after they came to Antioch, began speaking to the Hellenists, preaching as good tidings the Lord Jesus. ²¹And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. ²²Then the report concerning them was heard in the ears of the Church which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas to go through as far as Antioch, ²³who, after he came and saw the grace of God, was glad and was exhorting all to keep on remaining near to the Lord with purpose of heart. ²⁴For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith; and a considerable crowd was added to the Lord. ²⁵And Barnabas went forth to Tarsus to search for Saul. ²⁶And having found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came to pass that they were gathered together with the Church for a whole year, and taught a considerable crowd. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

²⁷And in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸And one of them, by name Agavos, rose up, and signified by the Spirit that there was about to be a great famine over all the inhabited world, which also came to pass in the time of Claudius Cæsar. ²⁹And according as any one of the disciples was prospered, each of them determined to send relief toward ministering to the brethren who dwelt in Judæa, ³⁰which also they did, sending it off to the presbyters by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 12]. At that time:

4 ⁵Jesus came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the place which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶And Jacob’s well was there. Jesus then, having grown weary from the journey, was sitting thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith to her, “Give Me to drink.” ⁸For His disciples had gone away into the city in order that they might buy provisions. ⁹Then the Samaritan woman saith to Him, “How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest to drink from me, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” ¹⁰Jesus answered and said to her, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who is the One Who saith to thee, ‘Give Me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked Him, and He would have given to thee living water.” ¹¹The woman saith to Him, “Lord, Thou hast no bucket for drawing water, and the well is deep. From what place then hast Thou the water, the living one? ¹²“Thou art not greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his animals, art Thou?” ¹³Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinketh of this water shall thirst again; ¹⁴“but whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give him in no wise shall ever thirst. But the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing into eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman saith to Him, “Lord, give me this water, that I may not be thirsting, nor keep on coming here to draw.” ¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call thy husband, and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Well didst thou say, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸“for thou hast had five husbands, and now he whom thou hast is not thy husband; this truly thou hast spoken.” ¹⁹The woman saith to Him, “Lord, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. ²⁰“Our fathers do reverence in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is needful to do reverence.” ²¹Jesus saith to her, “Woman, believe Me, that there is coming an hour when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye do reverence to the Father. ²²“Ye do reverence what ye know not; we do reverence what we know, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³“But there is coming an hour, and now is, when the true worshippers shall do reverence to the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeketh such as those who revere Him. ²⁴“God is Spirit, and it is needful for those who revere Him to do reverence in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming, the One Who is called Christ. Whenever that One should come, He will announce to us all things.” ²⁶Jesus saith to her, “I am, the One Who speaketh to thee.” ²⁷And upon this came His disciples, and they wondered that He was speaking with a woman; nevertheless no one said, “What seekest Thou?” or “Why speakest Thou with her?” ²⁸The woman then left her waterpot, and went away into the city, and saith to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a Man Who told me all things whatsoever I did. This One is not the Christ, is He?” ³⁰Then they went forth out of the city and were going toward Him.

³¹But in the meantime the disciples were entreating Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³²But He said to them, “I have food to eat which ye know not.” ³³Therefore the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” ³⁴Jesus saith to them, “My food is that I be doing the will of Him Who sent Me, and that I should finish His work. ³⁵“Do ye not say, ‘It is yet a space of four months, and the harvest cometh’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are white already to harvest. ³⁶“And the one who reapeth receiveth a reward, and gathereth fruit to life eternal, that both the one who soweth and the one who reapeth may rejoice together. ³⁷“For in this the saying is true, ‘There is one who soweth and another who reapeth.’ ³⁸“I sent you forth to reap on what ye have not labored; others have labored, and ye have entered into their labor.” ³⁹And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him, because of the utterance of the woman testifying, “He told me all things whatsoever I did.” ⁴⁰Therefore, when the Samaritans came to Him, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of His word. ⁴²And to the woman they were saying, “We no longer believe because of thy talk; for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this One is truly the Savior of the world, the Christ.”

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.