Romans 6.11-17 (Epistle)

11Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered.

1 Corinthians 4.9-16 (Epistle, Apostles)

9For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. 10We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor. 11Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. 12We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. 13Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

14I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News. 16I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.

Matthew 8.14-23 (Gospel)

14When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15He touched her hand, and the fever left her. So she got up and served him. 16When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

18Now when Jesus saw great multitudes around him, he gave the order to depart to the other side.

19A scribe came and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

20Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

21Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.”

22But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

23When he got into a boat, his disciples followed him.

Mark 3.13-19 (Gospel, Apostles)

13He went up into the mountain and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him. 14He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach 15and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: 16Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder); 18Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot;

19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house.

Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious and All-praised Twelve Apostles

Though each of the Twelve Apostles has his own Feast day, on this day they are commemorated together. Of the Twelve, only St John the Theologian died in peace; the rest met a martyr’s end. Following are their individual feast days and the manner of their end.

Roman citizens could not be crucified: crucifixion was considered a shameful death unworthy of a citizen. For this reason the Apostle Paul was ‘privileged’ to be beheaded.

Peter: June 29, January 16. Crucified upside down.

Andrew: November 30. Crucified.

James the Son of Zebedee: April 30. Beheaded.

John the Theologian: September 26, May 8. Died in peace in a wondrous way.

Philip: November 14. Crucified.

Bartholomew: June 11, August 25. Crucified, then flayed and beheaded.

Thomas: October 6. Pierced with five spears.

Matthew the Evangelist: November 16. Burned to death.

James the Son of Aphaeos: October 9. Crucified.

Thaddeus (or Jude the brother of James): June 19. Crucified.

Simon the Zealot: May 10. Crucified.

Matthias: August 9. Stoned, then beheaded with an axe when dead.

Paul: June 29. Beheaded.