1But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they and some others came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared.
2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
3They entered in, and didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body.
4While they were greatly perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling clothing.
5Becoming terrified, they bowed their faces down to the earth. The men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
6He isn’t here, but is risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee,
7saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again?”
8They remembered his words,
9returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
10Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles.
11These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.
12But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he departed to his home, wondering what had happened.
Romans 6.18-23 (Epistle)
18Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
19I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
20For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
21What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matthew 8.5-13 (Gospel)
5When he came into Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking him for help,
6saying, “Lord, my servant lies in the house paralyzed, grievously tormented.”
7Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
8The centurion answered, “Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
9For I am also a man under authority, having under myself soldiers. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and tell another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and tell my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to those who followed, “Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel.
11I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven,
12but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.” His servant was healed in that hour.
Commemorations
Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patar
Noted in his own time for his wisdom and virtue, he was called Eubolos, meaning “of good counsel.” He was among the first to oppose the heretical writings of Origen. He was bishop in Patara (according to some sources) or Olympia (according to others), then of Tyre in Phoenecia. Under the Emperor Maximinus, he was attacked by the pagans and received the crown of martyrdom in Chalkis in Greece.
St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1363)
For twenty-eight years he lived the ascetical life on Mt Athos as a disciple of St Gregory of Mt Sinai. Later, he founded the monastery of St Mamas, also on Mt Athos. In 1350 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. After four years, he resigned the patriarchal throne to return to the Holy Mountain, but was called back to the throne, where he remained until his death in 1363. He wrote the definitive lives of St Gregory the Sinaite and St Theodosius of Trnovo. He was known to St Maximos Kapsokalyvia (the Hut-burner), who foretold his death: On his final journey to Serbia, on which he died, the Patriarch stopped on Mt Athos, where St Maximos saw him and said, “This elder will not see his flock again, because I hear behind him the hymn over the grave, ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way…’”
Blessed Studios (5th c.)
He was a prominent nobleman and consul in Constantinople. In the City he founded both the Church of St John the Forerunner in 463, and the monastery thereafter called the Studion in honor of him. The Studion monastery nurtured a long line of ascetics, teachers, and martyrs; perhaps the best known is St Theodore the Studite (November 11), the great defender of the holy icons. The monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1204, restored in 1293 by Emperor Andronicus II.