John 20.19-31 (9th Matins Gospel)

19When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were locked where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the middle and said to them, “Peace be to you.”

20When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit! 23If you forgive anyone’s sins, they have been forgiven them. If you retain anyone’s sins, they have been retained.”

24But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, wasn’t with them when Jesus came.

25The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26After eight days, again his disciples were inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors being locked, and stood in the middle, and said, “Peace be to you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and see my hands. Reach here your hand, and put it into my side. Don’t be unbelieving, but believing.”

28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

29Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

30Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; 31but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Hebrews 9.11-14 (Epistle)

11But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without defect to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Galatians 3.23-29 (Epistle, St Mary)

23But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, confined for the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.

Mark 10.32-45 (Gospel)

32They were on the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going in front of them, and they were amazed; and those who followed were afraid. He again took the twelve, and began to tell them the things that were going to happen to him. 33“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles. 34They will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”

35James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came near to him, saying, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we will ask.”

36He said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?”

37They said to him, “Grant to us that we may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left hand, in your glory.”

38But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

39They said to him, “We are able.” Jesus said to them, “You shall indeed drink the cup that I drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; 40but to sit at my right hand and at my left hand is not mine to give, but for whom it has been prepared.”

41When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant toward James and John.

42Jesus summoned them and said to them, “You know that they who are recognized as rulers over the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant. 44Whoever of you wants to become first among you shall be bondservant of all. 45For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Luke 7.36-50 (Gospel, St Mary)

36One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered into the Pharisee’s house and sat at the table. 37Behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner.”

40Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” He said, “Teacher, say on.”

41“A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42When they couldn’t pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?”

43Simon answered, “He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most.” He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” 44Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” 48He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

49Those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

50He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Ven. Hilarion the New

He took up the monastic life when very young, and lived as a recluse for many years, and gained the grace to heal sicknesses and drive out demons by his prayers. Later he became abbot of the Monastery of Pelekete in Bithynia. During the reign of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, he and his monastery steadfastly upheld the holy icons, and were fiercely persecuted. Hilarion and his forty monks were exiled to a prison near Ephesus, where the Saint reposed.

Repose of Gerontissa Gavrilia (1992) (March 15 OC)

Mother Gavrilia, who was known to many who are still alive, has not been officially glorified by the Church, but is considered by many to be a Saint of our time. Her fine biography, Ascetic of Love, has been translated into English and several other languages. The account below is excerpted from that on the web site of St Gregory Palamas Monastery.

“The Gerontissa Gabrielia was born in Constantinople a hundred years ago on October 2/15, 1897. She grew up in the City until her family moved to Thessalonika in 1923. She went to England in 1938 and stayed there throughout the Second World War. She trained as a chiropodist and physiotherapist. In 1945 she returned to Greece where she worked with the Friends Refugee Mission and the American Farm School in Thessalonika in early post-war years. Later she opened her own therapy office in Athens until 1954. In March of that year her mother died and the office was closed. Sister Lila left Greece and traveled overland to India where she worked with the poorest of the poor, even the lepers, for five years.

“It was not until 1959 that she went to the Monastery of Mary and Martha in Bethany, Palestine, to become a nun. When she arrived she asked Fr. Theodosius the chaplain for a rule of prayer. Fr. Theodosius was somewhat surprised to find that she could read even ancient Byzantine Greek. Fr. Theodosius said, “The great elders that we hear about no longer exist. I certainly am not one. You came here to save your soul. If I start giving you rules, you will lose you soul and I will as well. But here is Fr. John. He will be your elder.” So for her first year in the monastery he set her to reading only the Gospels and St. John Climacus. (It should be noted that at that time the Ladder had not been published in modern Greek.)

“She was three years in Bethany. In April, 1962, word came that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople sought to send an Orthodox monastic to Taize in France. Sister Gabrielia went by way of Taize (she spoke fluent French from childhood) to America.

“In 1963 she was back in Greece. The Gerontissa was tonsured to the Small Schema by Abbot Amphilochios (Makris) on Patmos in the Cave of St. Anthony under the Monastery of Evangelismos just before she and the nun Tomasina left again for India. Elder Amphilochios was enthusiastic at the idea a nun who would be open to the an active outreach in the world. In India she was for three year in Nani Tal in Uttar Pradesh where Fr. Lazarus Moore was the priest and where he consulted the Gerontissa in his translations of the Psalter and the Fathers. Between 1967 and 1977 the Gerontissa traveled in the Mission field of East Africa, in Europe including visiting old friends and spiritual fathers Lev Gillet and Sophrony of Essex, again to America, and briefly in Sinai where Archbishop Damianos was attempting to reintroduce women’s monasticism. She traveled extensively, with much concern and broad love for the people of God. Some of her spiritual children found her in Jerusalem beside the Tomb of Christ; others found her on the mission field of East Africa. For years beginning in about 1977, she lived hidden in a little apartment, the “House of the Angels” in Patissia in the midst of the noise and smog and confusion of central Athens. A little place, a hidden place, a precious place to those who knew her there.

“In 1989 she moved to Holy Protection hermitage on the island of Aegina, close by the shrine of St. Nectarios. There she called the last two of her spiritual children to become monastics near her, and there she continued to receive many visitors. At the start of Great Lent in 1990 she was hospitalized for lymphatic cancer. She was forty days in the hospital, leaving during Holy Week and receiving communion of Pascha. And to the puzzlement of the doctors, the cancer disappeared. It was not yet her time.

“The Gerontissa finally withdrew to quiet. With only one last nun she moved for the last time in this life, to the island of Leros. There they established the hesychastirion of the Holy Archangels. Only in this last year of her life did she accept the Great Schema at the hands of Fr. Dionysious from Little St. Anne’s Skete on Athos. He came to give her the Schema in the Chapel of the Panaghia in the Kastro on the top of Leros.

“Gerontissa Gabrielia passed from this world on March 28, 1992, having never built a monastery. Over the years, six of her spiritual children did become monastics, but never more that one or two were with her at a time. Only the angels could count the number of lives that God touched and changed through her. Her biography and collected writings were published in Greek in 1996, through the work of her last monastic daughter and the contribution of many, many others who held the Gerontissa dear. An English translation is in process [Note: it has now been published].

“Anyone who knew the Gerontissa realized that God has not left us without His saints, even down to the present day. The few words recorded here scarcely suggest the clarity and love of her soul. Words are only the tools of this world; the wonder of the Gerontissa was wrapped in the mystery of the silence of the world to come.

“She never sought a reputation. She never allowed anything about her to be published during her long life and only allowed her children to take photographs in her very last years. Those whom God touched through her called her Gerontissa; she never made herself anything but the nun Gabrielia.

“She was humility and love incarnate.”

The Gerontissa embodied an ‘ecumenism’ that might serve as a model for many in our time: she was completely loving and open to all people of all faiths, yet while working freely with protestants and Hindus in service to man, she never compromised any aspect of her Orthodox faith. Once, some protestant fellow-workers suggested that they pray together; Mother Gavrilia thanked them lovingly, but said ‘I only pray in church or alone.’