11About him we have many words to say, and hard to interpret, seeing you have become dull of hearing.
12For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the revelations of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.
13For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.
14But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.
1Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God,
2of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
3This will we do, if God permits.
4For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame.
7For the land which has drunk the rain that comes often on it and produces a crop suitable for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receives blessing from God;
8but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
Luke 21.5-7, 10-11, 20-24 (Gospel)
5As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said,
6“As for these things which you see, the days will come in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.”
7They asked him, “Teacher, so when will these things be? What is the sign that these things are about to happen?”
10Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
11There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
20“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.
21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the middle of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein.
22For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath to this people.
24They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
Commemorations
Ven. Xenophon and Mary
Xenophon was a wealthy senator in Constantinople during the reign of Justinian. He and his wife Mary had two sons, Arcadius and John, to whom they gave every advantage of education. When they were of age, Xenophon sent them both to study law in Berytus (Beirut). But the ship on which they set out was wrecked in a storm, and the two brothers were cast ashore, alive but separated, neither knowing whether the other had survived.
Both brothers gave thanks to God for their salvation and, newly conscious of the vanity of earthly things, both became monks: John in Tyre and Arcadius in Jerusalem. Two years later, having heard no news from his sons, Xenophon made inquiries and found that they had never arrived at Beirut, and that they had seemingly perished in a shipwreck. Giving thanks to God, who gives and takes away, both Xenophon and his wife Mary put on coarse garments and went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, they met the spiritual father of Arcadius, who told them that both their sons were alive and that they would soon see them.
By God’s providence, John and Arcadius met one another at Golgotha and, joyfully reunited, spent some time serving Arcadius’ holy Elder. Two days later Xenophon and Mary, visiting the Elder, spent time with their two sons but did not recognize them until the Elder revealed their identity. The parents wept for joy and decided immediately to take up the monastic life themselves. Giving away their considerable wealth, the two entered monasteries in the Holy Land. Both parents and sons went far in the life of prayer, being granted the power to work miracles and foreknow future events.
St Ammonas of Egypt, disciple of St Anthony the Great (350)
“Saint Ammonas was a disciple of Saint Antony the Great and became his successor at the head of the hermits of the outer mountain of Pispir, after having spent fourteen years at Scetis in ceaseless prayer to the Lord to be granted victory over anger. He was afterwards consecrated bishop, probably by Saint Athanasius the Great. He possessed impassibility to the extent of being as though ignorant of the existence of evil, and incapable of passing judgment on anyone.
“One day some people came to ask him to settle a difference among them. The Saint responded by pretending to be insane, and answered a woman who treated him as a madman: ‘You don’t realize how much trouble I’ve given myself in the desert to acquire this madness and I have lost it today because of you!’ On another occasion when he was taken to visit a brother with a bad reputation, he sat on the barrel where [the erring brother’s] concubine was hiding while his accusers searched his cell in vain. Then, taking his leave of the unfortunate man, he simply said: ‘Brother, have a care for yourself!’
“When he was asked which deeds of ascesis are most pleasing to God, he replied: ‘Just sit in your cell and eat a little every day, always keeping the prayer of the Publican in your heart (Luke 18:13), and you can be saved.’ He also said that the fear of God begets moans and tears and these cause joy to arise in the soul, filling it with divine strength to do what is pleasing to God, and that this power from on high establishes us in the company of the Angels. Raised thus from height to height as we humbly pray to be delivered from sin, we shall (he said) receive as if of itself, revelation of the mysteries of God.” (Synaxarion)
Our Holy Mother Paula of Rome (404)
She was born in 347 to a noble family in Rome, and at age sixteen married Toxotius, a prominent nobleman. Though her husband was a pagan, he was devoted to her and gave her freedom to keep a Christian home and rear her children as Christians. They were blessed with five children. When she was thirty-two her husband died suddenly, and Paula resolved to turn her large house in Rome into a monastery. Later she traveled to the Holy Land with her spiritual father St Jerome (June 15). In Bethlehem she established two monasteries, one for women (where she dwelt) and one for St Jerome and his companions. Every day the nuns chanted the entire Psalter, which they were required to learn by heart. Paula was exceptionally austere in her fasting and lavish in her almsgiving, often giving away to the poor even the goods needed by her community for subsistence. She aided her spiritual father and brother Jerome in his controversies with Origen’s followers: St Jerome himself was hot-tempered, and St Paula often exhorted him to confront his enemies with patience and humility.
When she was fifty-six years old, she felt her death approaching, and heard Christ say to her ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone’ (Song of Songs 2:10-11). To this she replied ‘The time of harvest has come. I shall truly see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living,’ and gave up her soul joyfully. Her funeral was attended by throngs of monks, nuns and poor people, all of whom revered her as their mother and benefactress.