1The memory of a just man is praised, and the Lord’s blessing is upon his head. Blessed is one who has found wisdom; a mortal who knows understanding. To import her is better than treasures of gold and silver. She is more valuable than precious stones; nothing of value equals her worth. Justice proceeds from her mouth; she bears law and mercy on her tongue. Therefore, my children, listen to me, for I speak weighty things. And blessed is the one who keeps my ways. For my goings out are the goings out of life, and favour is prepared from the Lord. Therefore I exhort you, and utter my voice to the children of humankind. Because I, Wisdom, have prepared counsel, knowledge and understanding. I have called on them. Counsel and sureness are mine; prudence is mine, strength is mine. I love those who are my friends, while those who seek me will find grace. You innocent, then, understand cunning; you untaught, take it to heart. Listen to me, for I will speak weighty things, and I will open right things from my lips. Because my throat will meditate truth; lying lips are abominable before me. All the words of my mouth are with justice, there is nothing crooked in them nor twisted. They are all straight for those who understand, and right for those who find knowledge. For I teach you what is true, that your hope may be in the Lord and that you may be filled with spirit.
Proverbs 10.31-11.12 (Vespers)
31The mouth of the righteous drops wisdom: but the tongue of the unjust shall perish.
32The lips of just men drop grace: but the mouth of the ungodly is perverse.
1False balances are an abomination before the Lord: but a just weight is acceptable to him.
2Wherever pride enters, there will be also disgrace: but the mouth of the lowly meditates wisdom.
3When a just man dies he leaves regret: but the destruction of the ungodly is speedy, and causes joy.
4Possessions will not profit in a day of wrath, but righteousness will deliver from death.
5Righteousness traces out blameless paths: but ungodliness encounters unjust dealing.
6The righteousness of upright men delivers them: but transgressors are caught in their own destruction.
7At the death of a just man his hope does not perish: but the boast of the ungodly perishes.
8A righteous man escapes from a snare, and the ungodly man is delivered up in his place.
9In the mouth of ungodly men is a snare to citizens: but the understanding of righteous men is prosperous.
10In the prosperity of righteous men a city prospers: but by the mouth of ungodly men it is overthrown.
11At the blessing of the upright a city shall be exalted.
12A man void of understanding sneers at his fellow citizens: but a sensible man is quiet.
Wisdom of Solomon 3.1-9 (Vespers)
1But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.
2In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery,
3And their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.
4For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality.
5And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.
6As gold in the furnace has he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.
7And in the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble.
8They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever.
9They that put their trust in him shall understand the truth: and such as be faithful in love shall abide with him: for grace and mercy is to his saints, and he has care for his elect.
Matthew 11.27-30
(Matins Gospel)
27All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.
28“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.
30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
2 Corinthians 13.3-14 (Epistle)
3seeing that you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me who is not weak, but is powerful in you.
4For he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we will live with him through the power of God toward you.
5Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
6But I hope that you will know that we aren’t disqualified.
7Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is honorable, though we may seem to have failed.
8For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
9For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray for this: your becoming perfect.
10For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not deal sharply when present, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.
11Finally, brothers, rejoice! Be perfected. Be comforted. Be of the same mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.
12Greet one another with a holy kiss.
13All the saints greet you.
14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Galatians 5.22-6.2
(Epistle, St Sergius)
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,
23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
25If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
26Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
1Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted.
2Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Luke 5.33-39 (Gospel)
33They said to him, “Why do John’s disciples often fast and pray, likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?”
34He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them?
35But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.”
36He also told a parable to them. “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not match the old.
37No one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled and the skins will be destroyed.
38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.
39No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
Luke 6.17-23
(Gospel, St Sergius)
17He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases,
18as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and they were being healed.
19All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all.
20He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for God’s Kingdom is yours.
21Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.
23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.
Commemorations
Our Holy Father Sergius of Radonezh (1392)
‘Our righteous Father Sergius was born in Rostov, north of Moscow, about the year 1314. Named Bartholomew in baptism, he was brought up in Radonezh, and at the death of his parents he withdrew to the wilderness to become a monk. It is notable that without having been trained in a monastery, he was of such a spiritual stature as to be able to take up the perilous eremitical life from the beginning, without falling into delusion or despondency. When he had endured with courage the deprivations of the solitary life, other monks began to come to him, for whom he was made abbot against his will. On the counsel of Philotheus, Patriarch of Constantinople, he organized his monks according to the cenobitic life, appointing duties to each. While Anthony and Theodosius of Kiev, and the other righteous Fathers before Sergius, had established their monasteries near to cities, Sergius was the leader and light of those who went far into the wilderness, and after his example the untrodden forests of northern Russia were settled by monks. When Grand Duke Demetrius Donskoy was about to go to battle against the invading Tartars, he first sought the blessing of Saint Sergius, through whose prayers he was triumphant. Saint Sergius was adorned with the highest virtues of Christ-like humility and burning love for God and neighbor, and received the gift of working wonders, of casting out demons, and of discretion for leading souls to salvation. When he served the Divine Liturgy, an Angel served him visibly; he was also vouchsafed the visitation of the most holy Theotokos with the Apostles Peter and John. He was gathered to his Fathers on September 25, 1392. At the recovery of his holy relics on July 5th, 1422, his body and garments were found fragrant and incorrupt. His life was written by the monk Epiphanius, who knew him.’ (Great Horologion)
Our Righteous Mother Euphrosyne (ca. 445)
She was the daughter of a wealthy Christian, Paphnutius, who with his wife brought up Euphrosyne in piety. Not wishing to marry, she secretly fled her home and its wealth, dressed herself in men’s clothing and entered a monastery using the name of Smaragdus. There she lived in asceticism for thirty-eight years. She only revealed her identity on her death bed. Her father Paphnutius became a monk in the same monastery, and entered into repose ten years after his daughter.
Commemoration of the Great Earthquake at Constantinople (447) and the Miracle of the Trisagion
During the reign of the Emperor Theophilus, the city of Constantinople was visited by earthquakes for almost four months. The Emperor, the Patriarch Proclus, and the people joined in a barefoot procession to make prayer to God for their safety. While they were gathered, the tremors increased dramatically, and a young boy was taken up into the sky in the sight of the people, who fearfully cried out Kyrie eleison! When the boy came down from the heavens, he said that he had been among choirs of Angels who sang Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us! and that a voice had commanded him to tell the Patriarch that the people should make supplication to God in this way. The Patriarch instructed the people to chant this hymn, whereupon the ground stopped shaking and the child died.
The Empress Pulcheria (September 10) asked the Patriarch to order that this hymn be chanted henceforth in the Divine Liturgy, as it still is today.
Venerable Dosithea, recluse of the Kiev Caves (1776)
She was born to landed gentry of Riazan province in 1721. Her name in secular life is not recorded. For much of her childhood she was cared for by her grandmother the nun Porphyria, from whom she acquired a love for the ascetical struggle. When Porphyria took the Great Schema, the child returned home, but continued to live as much like a nun as she could. Her parents were eager to marry her as soon as possible, but she foiled their plans by leaving home at the age of fifteen, dressed as a peasant boy and calling herself Dositheus. In this guise she entered the Lavra of St Sergius. Three years later she fled to avoid discovery by her parents, and went to the Lavra of Kiev. There she was turned away, since she had no passport; so she took up the hermit’s life in cave near Kitayev Skete, living only on bread, water and a few wild plants. Before long her gifts of prophecy became known, and the counsel of ‘Dositheus the Hermit’ was sought out by many of the faithful. She would speak to her many visitors through a small window that did not allow them to see her face. The Empress Elizabeth visited her in 1744, and at her request ‘Dositheus’ received monastic tonsure. When the young Prochor Moshnin — one day to be known as St Seraphim of Sarov (January 2) — visited her, she foresaw his holy future, blessed him and directed him to the Monastery of Sarov, instructing him to practice the Jesus Prayer ceaselessly.
Later, the eremitic life was banned in Russia by Imperial decree, so ‘Dositheus’ moved to the Kiev Caves Lavra, then to a remote cell at the Kitaya Skete. When she discerned that the time of her death was near, she left her cell and greeted the brethren of the Skete. The next day she was found on her knees in her cell before an icon, with a piece of paper in her hand reading ‘My body is ready for burial. I beg you not to touch it and to bury it in the usual way.’ Only in preparing her for burial was it discovered that she was a woman. ‘Dositheus the Hermit’ is counted as one of the revivers of the Orthodox hesychast tradition in Russia, where it had been almost forgotten even among monastics.