Thursday
April 12 /25 ns 2024
Great Lent
Fast day
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Saint Basil the Confessor,
Bishop of Párion
Saint Akákios the New
of Kavsokalyvia;
Saint Zeno, Bishop of Verona
Holy Prophet Isaiah 65:8-16 KJV
8 Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all.
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
10 And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.
11 But ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number.
12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
13 Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed:
14 Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit.
15 And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name:
16 That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
Genesis 46:1-7 KJV
46 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac.
2 And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I.
3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.
5 And Jacob rose up from Beersheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him:
7 His sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.
Proverbs 23:15-24:5 KJV
15 My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.
16 Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.
17 Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
18 For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.
19 Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way.
20 Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
21 For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
22 Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.
23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
24 The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.
25 Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.
26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.
28 She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.
29 Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
30 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
31 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
32 At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
33 Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
34 Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
35 They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.
24 Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them.
2 For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.
3 Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:
4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.
MARTYRS AND SAINTS
by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Blessed Memory
also a PAGE
In a time of anti-religious cynicism and at a time when we, who are emerging from one of the most violent, barbaric, and bloody centuries in human history, nonetheless consider ourselves quite civilized and advanced, the lives of Saints and Martyrs—religious fairy tales, as some call them—appear to many as naïve and meant for the ignorant and superstitious. Given this perception, it is all the more important that we learn to read and enjoy, as well as fully understand, the lives of those who embody and exemplify the virtues of our Faith. In many ways, hagiographical (the writing of the lives of saints) accounts, which, like Icons, have a style, a language, and an imagery of their own, are the literary counterpart of Icons.
Through the symbolic, stylized lives of the heroes of our Faith, we are inspired to imitate the ways of pure and guileless believers. We are lifted up, through the agency of hagiography, to the very archetypes of those perfected, deified, and made perfect, by Grace, in Christ. Hagiography has the ability to present, in a purified medium, the witness of Saints and Martyrs who transformed themselves in Christ, becoming "small Jesus Christs" in Jesus Christ (the actual meaning of Christocentric sanctity). If these lives seem at times fantastic, this is because we are so mundane. If they seem terribly improbable, it is because our limitations, pretensions, and pride are so horribly and inevitably probable.
In the forgotten past, Aesop's tales, fabrications, taught virtue and values to generations of human beings. In our nearer, if fading, Christian past, the lives of Saints and Martyrs served the same purpose, though they were not fabricated, but derived from actual lives and actual events. They may, once more, be told in an "iconographic," stylized way, but they rise out of real lives in real time; and, beyond this, they take on spiritual dimensions by virtue of the Grace that they convey.
I think that we all need to return to an understanding of what hagiography teaches us; of how it cleanses our minds and subdues our passions; of how it reinforces our faith in things beyond the natural and beyond the limitations of the world. We need those things that speak of simplicity of spirit and that starkly contrast human good and faith against the demonic, fallen ills of human resentment, jealousy, and evil, which we cover with the myth of being sophisticated creatures living in a civilized time.
Reduced to a simple struggle between good and evil, life can tell us much about what lies beyond good and evil. It can speak to us of spiritual perfection. And life does, indeed, speak quite clearly to us Christians through the lips, lives, and lucidity of the Saints and Martyrs, if we heed what they tell us with childlike wonderment.
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