9Now when he had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.
10She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
11When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they disbelieved.
12After these things he was revealed in another form to two of them as they walked, on their way into the country.
13They went away and told it to the rest. They didn’t believe them, either.
14Afterward he was revealed to the eleven themselves as they sat at the table; and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they didn’t believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
15He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to the whole creation.
16He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned.
17These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new languages;
18they will take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will in no way hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
19So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
20They went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen.
Romans 5.1-10 (Epistle)
1Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
2through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance;
4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a good person someone would even dare to die.
8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.
10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
Matthew 6.22-33 (Gospel)
22“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.
23But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
25Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they?
27“Which of you by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan?
28Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin,
29yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these.
30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith?
31“Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’
32For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33But seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.
Commemorations
Greatmartyr Euphemia
St Euphemia is commemorated on September 16; today we commemorate the miracle wrought by her relics during the Fourth Ecumenical Council. After much debate and no progress among the defenders of Orthodoxy and the proponents of the Monophysite heresy, the two parties agreed each to write their different definitions of the Faith in two separate books, and to ask God to show them the truth. They placed the two books in the case containing St Euphemia’s relics, sealed the case, and departed. After three days of constant vigil and supplication, they opened the reliquary in the presence of the Emperor, and found the Monophysite book under the feet of the Saint, and the Orthodox book in her right hand.
Blessed Princess Olga
“Saint Olga, renowned for her wisdom and sobriety, in her youth became the wife of Igor, Great Prince of Kiev, who ruled during the tenth century. After her husband’s death, she herself ruled capably, and was finally moved to accept the Faith of Christ. She travelled to Constantinople to receive Holy Baptism. The Emperor, seeing her outward beauty and inward greatness, asked her to marry him. She said she could not do this before she was baptized; she furthermore asked him to be her Godfather at the font, which he agreed to do. After she was baptized (receiving the name of Helen), the Emperor repeated his proposal of marriage. She answered that now he was her father, through Holy Baptism, and that not even among the heathen was it heard of a man marrying his daughter. Gracefully accepting to be outwitted by her, he sent her back to her land with priests and sacred texts and holy icons. Although her son Svyatoslav remained a pagan, she planted the seed of faith in her grandson Vladimir (see July 15). She reposed in peace in 969.” (Great Horologion)
New Martyrs Nikodemos (1722) and Nektarios (1820)
These two martyrs were unrelated, but their stories are similar. Both were Christians who embraced Islam at an early age under the Turks. Both later repented and, after doing penance, resolved to return to the place of their apostasy and accept martyrdom. Both presented themselves to the Turks, proclaimed their Christian faith, and were beheaded according to Islamic law.
Saint Nikodemos not only embraced Islam, but forced his family to do the same. One of his sons fled to the Holy Mountain and became a monk. The father pursued him there, but was moved to repentance by the holiness of the place and became a monk himself. After three years of penance, he resolved to return home to Albania and embrace his martyrdom.
Saint Nektarios converted to Islam (the Prologue says under duress) at the age of seventeen. When his mother saw him dressed as a Turk, she cried “Get away from me! I do not know you. I bore you as a Christian, not a Turk!” Repenting of his deed he went to the Holy Mountain and became a monk. Like St Nikodemos, he determined after a few years to return home and accept martyrdom for Christ.
St Sophrony of Essex (1993) (June 28 OC)
He was born in Russia in 1896. As a young man, he lived an artist’s life, trying to succeed as a painter while engaging in a wide-ranging spiritual search which included study of the Eastern religions. He fled to Paris during the Russian Revolution. There he rediscovered the Orthodoxy of his childhood and gave his life wholly to repentance and prayer, often spending hours at a time prostrated and weeping on the floor of his Paris apartment. In 1925 he moved to Mt Athos, where he lived as a monk for more than twenty years. On the Holy Mountain he became the spiritual child of the holy elder Silouan. After St Silouan’s repose, his own health badly damaged by living in a damp cave, he was granted permission by his monastery to leave the Holy Mountain and write a life of St Silouan. This is St Silouan of Mt Athos, a great spiritual treasure which includes the writings of the Saint as well as Fr Sophrony’s profound reflections on his life. (It was largely through Fr Sophrony’s work that St Silouan, who lived an almost completely hidden life, was glorified by the Church).
In 1959 Fr Sophrony founded the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, England, where he lived until his repose. He was a spiritual father to Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpakthos, one of present-day Orthodoxy’s most profound spiritual writers, who has said this about him: “I ascertained from almost the first meeting… that Father Sophrony was a Theologian of our Church, a God-seer. I realized, that is, that the Elder had seen the Uncreated Light… I had discerned that he was truly a God-seer, because otherwise his whole life, his whole demeanor, the words he said, the counsels, and in any case his whole personality, could not be justified. He was literally altered by the uncreated Grace of God.” At Essex, he was known as spiritual father to many and (little publicized) as a wonderworker and intercessor. He reposed in peace in 1993. In 2019 He was formally glorified as a Saint of the Church by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Any who wish to drink from the deep well of his teaching can read (in addition to St Silouan) his books On Prayer and We Shall See Him As He Is.
“Any and every dogmatic error will inevitably reflect on one’s spiritual life.” — Elder Sophrony