Acts 13.13-24 (Epistle)

13Now Paul and his company set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem. 14But they, passing on from Perga, came to Antioch of Pisidia. They went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. 15After the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, speak.”

16Paul stood up, and gesturing with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. 17The God of this people chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they stayed as aliens in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out of it. 18For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. 19When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years. 20After these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21Afterward they asked for a king, and God gave to them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. 22When he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he also testified, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ 23From this man’s offspring, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise, 24before his coming, when John had first preached the baptism of repentance to Israel.

John 6.5-14 (Gospel)

5Jesus therefore, lifting up his eyes and seeing that a great multitude was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?” 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

7Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may receive a little.”

8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these among so many?”

10Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in that place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11Jesus took the loaves, and having given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to those who were sitting down, likewise also of the fish as much as they desired. 12When they were filled, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces which are left over, that nothing be lost.” 13So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. 14When therefore the people saw the sign which Jesus did, they said, “This is truly the prophet who comes into the world.”

Ven. Pachomius the Great

His name in his native Coptic, Pachom, means “eagle.” He was an Egyptian pagan who entered the Roman army at a young age. While quartered at Thebes, he was amazed at the kindness of the local Christians, who brought food and drink to the soldiers. Learning who they were, he believed in Christ and vowed, once released from the army, to serve him for the rest of his life. At the end of his military service, he was baptised and became the disciple of the hermit Palamon, with whom he lived for ten years.

At a place called Tabennisis an angel appeared to him dressed in the robes of a monk and gave him a tablet on which was written a rule for a cenobitic monastery — one in which the brethren live communally rather than as hermits, something that had not been seen before among Christians. The angel commanded him to found such a monastery. Pachomius set to work, building many cells though there was no one to live there but himself and his brother John. When John questioned the unnecessary building, Pachomius only said that he was following God’s command, without saying who would live there or when.

But soon men began to assemble there, and in time so many came to be his disciples that he eventually founded nine monasteries housing thousands of monks. The rule that he gave (or had been given) for these monasteries became the model for all communal Christian monasticism thereafter. St Pachomius reposed in 346, before his great Egyptian fellow-strugglers St Anthony the Great and St Athanasius the Great.

Entertaining angels unawares: Christian believers’ simple acts of kindness toward their pagan oppressors may have seemed foolish to many, but it was such acts that opened the eyes of Pachomius to the light of Christ, and which bore incalculably great fruit: the founding of the monastic life which is still the backbone of Christ’s Church.

Our Father among the Saints Achillius, Bishop of Larissa (330)

He was born in Cappadocia, and was one of the 318 God-bearing Fathers who attended the First Ecumenical Council. At the council, Achillius took up a stone and said to the Arians, ‘If Christ is a creature of God, as you say, tell oil to flow from this stone.’ When the heretics kept silent, Achilleus went on, ‘And if the Son of God is equal to the Father, as we believe, let oil flow from this stone,’ at which oil flowed out. Returning to Larissa, the holy bishop cast down many pagan temples, built many churches, cast out many demons, and reposed in peace.