Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Sixteenth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians [§ 217]. Brethren:

1 ⁷We have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace, ⁸which He caused to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, ⁹having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed for Himself in Himself, ¹⁰in regard to a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to recapitulate all things in the Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, ¹¹in Him, in Whom we also were allotted inheritors, having been foreordained according to the purpose of the One energizing all things according to the counsel of His will, ¹²for us to be the praise of His glory, who have hoped before in the Christ; ¹³in Whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the Gospel of your salvation—in Whom having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴Who is an earnest of our inheritance until redemption of the preserved possession to the praise of His glory.

¹⁵On this account I also, having heard of the faith among you in the Lord Jesus and the love which is toward all the saints, ¹⁶cease not giving thanks on behalf of you, making mention of you at the time of my prayers, ¹⁷in order that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of the glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the full knowledge of Him.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 32]. At that time:

8 ¹The crowd being very great and having nothing that they might eat, Jesus called to Himself His disciples, and saith to them, ²“I am moved with compassion toward the crowd, because they continue with Me now three days and have nothing that they might eat. ³“And if I should dismiss them fasting to their home, they shall be faint in the way; for some of them have come from afar.” ⁴And His disciples answered Him, “From what place shall anyone here be able to fill these with bread in a wilderness?” ⁵And He asked them, “How many loaves have ye?” And they said, “Seven.” ⁶And He commanded the crowd to recline on the ground. And having taken the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and kept on giving them to His disciples, in order that they might set them before them; and they set them before the crowd. ⁷And they had a few small fish; and He blessed them, and said to set them also before them. ⁸And they ate and were filled; and they took up over and above seven provision baskets of fragments. ⁹And they who ate were about four thousand; and He dismissed them. ¹⁰And straightway He embarked into the ship with His disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanoutha.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the miracle performed by the Archangel Michael at Colossae (also known as Chonæ).

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 305]. Brethren:

2 ²If the word spoken by angels was confirmed, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, ³how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation, which received a beginning to be spoken of by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard, ⁴God also bearing them witness with both signs and wonders, and various works of power, and by distributions of the Holy Spirit, according to His will?

⁵For not to angels did He subject the coming inhabited world about which we speak; ⁶but one bore witness somewhere, saying, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him or the Son of Man that Thou visitest Him [Ps. 8:4]? ⁷“Thou didst make Him for a short time less than the angels; Thou didst crown Him with glory and honor [Ps. 8:5], ⁸“Thou didst subject all things under His feet [Ps. 8:6].” For in subjecting all things to Him, He left nothing not subject to Him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to Him. ⁹But we see Jesus, Who for a short time was made less than the angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that He, by the grace of God, should taste death for everyone. ¹⁰For it was becoming to Him, because of Whom are all things and by means of Whom are all things, bringing many sons to glory, to have perfected the originator of their salvation through sufferings.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 51]. The Lord said to His disciples:

10 ¹⁶“The one who heareth you heareth Me, and the one who rejecteth you rejecteth Me, and the one who rejecteth Me rejecteth the One Who sent Me forth.”

¹⁷And the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are being made subject to us in Thy name.” ¹⁸And He said to them, “I was beholding Satan as lightning having fallen out of the heaven. ¹⁹“Behold, I give you the authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy; and nothing in anywise shall injure you. ²⁰“However cease rejoicing in this, that the spirits are being made subject to you; but be rejoicing that your names were written in the heavens.” ²¹In the same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit, and said, “I give thanks to Thee, O Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent, and didst reveal them to babes. Yea, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing before Thee.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

September 19th – Civil Calendar
September 6th – Church Calendar

1. The Commemoration of the Miracles of the Holy Archangel Michael.

There was in Phrygia a place called Chonae, not far from Hierapolis, and in that place there was a miraculous spring of water. When the Apostle John the Theologian, together with Philip, was preaching the Gospel in Hierapolis, he looked at this place and foretold that a spring would gush forth in it, a spring of healing water from which many would be restored to health, and that the place would be visited by Michael, the great archangel of God. This prophecy was very soon fulfilled: a spring of water appeared, which became known far and wide for its miraculous power. A pagan in Laodicea had a dumb daughter, which caused him great grief, but the Archangel Michael appeared to him in a dream and urged him to take his daughter to this spring, that she might be restored to health. The father immediately obeyed, took his daughter and there encountered many people who had come to seek deliverance from various ills. They were all Christians. The man asked how he should seek healing, and the Christians told him: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, you must beg the Archangel Michael.’ The father made his petition accordingly and dipped his daughter in the water, and the girl began to speak. Then this pagan was baptized along with his daughter and his whole household, and built a church to the Archangel Michael over the spring.

Later, a young man called Archippos settled there. Pagans did him much malicious harm, for they did not want such power to be felt from a Christian holy place and many people be drawn to it. In their wickedness, they altered the course of a nearby river, so that it would inundate the church and the spring. But, at the prayers of Archippos, the Archangel Michael appeared and opened a fissure in the rock at the end of the church, through which the flooding river plunged. So the place was saved, and became known as Chonae—“plunging”—from the river’s plunge through the opened fissure. St. Archippos lived there in asceticism till the age of seventy, and entered peacefully into rest in the Lord.

2. The Holy Martyr Romulus, and the 11,000 soldiers.

When the Emperor Trajan was waging war in the East, he once ordered a count of the Christians in his army, and it was found that there were eleven thousand Christians in the imperial army. The emperor ordered that they all be dismissed from the army and sent to Armenia. St. Romulus was an official at the emperor’s court. He went to the emperor and chided him for these dismissals, acknowledging that he himself was a Christian. The emperor ordered that Romulus be beheaded. Of the exiled soldiers, ten thousand were crucified and the others died under various tortures.

3. St. Evdoxius.

A commander in the Roman army, he suffered for Christ in the time of Diocletian, being judged and tortured by the governor of Melitene in Armenia. With him suffered his friends Zeno and Macarius, and 1,104 other soldiers whom Evdoxius had brought to the Christian Faith. After his death, he appeared to his wife Vasilissa, who was faithful to Christ till her death and entered peacefully into rest.

4. Our Holy Father David.

He was a robber leader near Hermopolis in Egypt, and only in his later years came to himself, repented and became a monk. He entered peacefully into rest in the sixth century, being worthy of the kingdom of God through his great asceticism.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Christianity has uprooted many barbaric customs from human society, but some of these customs, praiseworthy from the pagan point of view and shameful from the Christian, have remained to the present day as a hidden putrefaction from seemingly-healed wounds. One of these customs was the seizing and carrying-off of girls. St. Basil writes strongly about this to one of his priests on the occasion of such an occurrence: ‘Do all in your power, when you find this girl, to take her away and return her to her parents, and deprive the abductor of participation in worship, and also those who helped him, according to my earlier direction—each of them with his whole house to be debarred from participation in worship for the space of three years. Any village that receives an abducted girl and hides her, and even holds her by force, is also deprived of such participation, and also anyone who encourages others to do this; that the abductor, like a snake or some such wild beast and universal enemy, may be driven from among them, and that we may show protection to the abused.’

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.