WEDNESDAY August 3/16 ns 2023 • Sts. Isaácios, Dalmátos, and Fáustus > Fast day; II Cor. 3:411; St. Matt. 23:29-39 > St Diadochos of Photiki > On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination One Hundred Texts

STS. ISAÁCIOS, DALMÁTOS, and FÁUSTUS

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  Great Feast of the Transfiguration  

Friday August 6/19 ns

Venerable Isaac is celebrated again separately on May 30. At first, St. Dalmatos was an officer during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great whom the emperor held in great esteem. When the spirit awakened in him, he despised all earthly things, resigned his rank and took his only son Faust and, with him, went to the community of St. Isaac in the outskirts of Constantinople where they both were tonsured as monks. Dalmatos was completely devoted to a god-pleasing life for which the elder Isaac rejoiced. When Isaac approached the hour of death, he appointed Dalmatos as abbot in his place. Later, this community was named after him - the so-called Dalmatos. Dalmatos devoted himself to fasting, at times for forty days. By fasting he conquered the invisible demonic power. He participated in the Third Ecumenical Council [Ephesus 431 A.D.] and fought against the Nestorian heresy. Pleasing God, he died peacefully in the fifth century. His son Faust supported his father in everything and, after a God-pleasing life, died peacefully in this Dalmatos community.

THE EPISTLE OF THE HOLY APOSTLE PAUL

2 Corinthians 3:4-11

4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;

6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.


THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO 

Saint Matthew 23:29-39

29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

St Diadochos of Photiki On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination One Hundred Texts

 

A man who loves the Lord with unflagging resolve once said to me: 'Because I desired conscious knowledge of divine love, God granted me a full and active experience of such love. I felt its energy so strongly that my soul longed with an inexpressible joy and love to leave the body and go to the Lord, and to become in a sense unaware of this transient form of life.' Once a man has experienced this love, he does not become angry however much he is insulted and harmed - for one pursuing the spiritual life still suffers such things - but he remains united in love to the soul of the man who has insulted or harmed him. His anger is kindled only against those who injure the poor or who, as the Scripture says, 'speak iniquity against God' (Ps. 75:5. LXX), or follow other forms of wickedness. 

Whoever loves God far more than himself, or rather no longer loves himself but only God, no longer vindicates his own honor; for his sole wish is that the divine righteousness, which has accorded him eternal honor, should alone be held in honor. This he no longer wishes in a half-hearted way, but with the force of an attitude established in him through his deep experience of the love of God. 

We should know, moreover, that a person energized by God to such love rises, at that moment, even above faith, since by reason of his great love he now senses consciously in his heart the One whom he previously honored by faith. The holy Apostle expresses this clearly when he says: 'Now there are three things that endure: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of them is love' (1 Cor. 13:13). For, as I have said, he who holds God in all the richness of love transcends at that moment his own faith, since he is wholly rapt in divine longing