10For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world produces death.
11For behold, this same thing, that you were grieved in a godly way, what earnest care it worked in you. Yes, what defense, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and vindication! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be pure in the matter.
12So although I wrote to you, I wrote not for his cause that did the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered the wrong, but that your earnest care for us might be revealed in you in the sight of God.
13Therefore we have been comforted. In our comfort we rejoiced the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.
14For if in anything I have boasted to him on your behalf, I was not disappointed. But as we spoke all things to you in truth, so our glorying also which I made before Titus was found to be truth.
15His affection is more abundantly toward you, while he remembers all of your obedience, how with fear and trembling you received him.
16I rejoice that in everything I am confident concerning you.
Mark 2.18-22
(Gospel)
18John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”
19Jesus said to them, “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can’t fast.
20But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.
21No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made.
22No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Commemorations
Greatmartyr Nicetas the Goth
He was a Goth of noble birth among his people, a disciple of Bishop Theophilus of the Goths, who took part in the First Ecumenical Council. When he confronted Athanaric, the pagan ruler of the Goths, for his persecution of Christians and for his unbelief, Nicetas was cruelly tortured and finally burned to death. Though he died in the flames, his body was brought forth unharmed. His relics were taken by his friend Marianus to Mopsuestia in Cilicia, where a church dedicated to the Saint was built.
Holy Martyr Porphyrius (361).
“An actor, he first mocked at Christians before Julian the Apostate. On one occasion, when he was mimicking the Christian mystery of Baptism, he was dipped into the water, pronouncing the words: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ When he emerged from the water, he cried out: ‘Now I am a Christian!’ Everyone thought that this was in jest, as always, but he held firm to it, stopped mocking Christians and finally suffered for Christ. He was beheaded in 361, and entered into the Kingdom of Christ.” (Prologue)
We rightly condemn worship that is purely external; but the life of St Porphyrius reminds us in a striking way that the ‘externals’ of the Faith have a power that can work to convert the heart of man. St Porphyrius used the words of Holy Baptism not only carelessly but mockingly, yet by God’s grace he emerged from the waters truly renewed into Christ.