Orthodox Calendar

Tuesday, May 26, 2111
Tuesday of the 4th Sunday of Pascha

No Fast

Scripture Readings

Commemorations

Scripture Readings

Acts 10.21-33 (Epistle)

21Peter went down to the men, and said, “Behold, I am he whom you seek. Why have you come?”

22They said, “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous man and one who fears God, and well spoken of by all the nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to invite you to his house, and to listen to what you say.”

23So he called them in and provided a place to stay. On the next day Peter arose and went out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24On the next day they entered into Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them, having called together his relatives and his near friends. 25When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell down at his feet, and worshiped him. 26But Peter raised him up, saying, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.” 27As he talked with him, he went in and found many gathered together. 28He said to them, “You yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man who is a Jew to join himself or come to one of another nation, but God has shown me that I shouldn’t call any man unholy or unclean. 29Therefore I also came without complaint when I was sent for. I ask therefore, why did you send for me?”

30Cornelius said, “Four days ago, I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer is heard, and your gifts to the needy are remembered in the sight of God. 32Send therefore to Joppa and summon Simon, who is also called Peter. He is staying in the house of a tanner named Simon, by the seaside. When he comes, he will speak to you.’ 33Therefore I sent to you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now therefore we are all here present in the sight of God to hear all things that have been commanded you by God.”

John 7.1-13 (Gospel)

1After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. 2Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand. 3His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do. 4For no one does anything in secret while he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.” 5For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.

6Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. 7The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil. 8You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.”

9Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. 10But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. 11The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, “Where is he?” 12There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.” 13Yet no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.

Commemorations

Apostles Carpus and Alphaeus of the Seventy

He was one of the Seventy and a companion of St Paul, who mentions him in 2 Timothy 4:13. He became a Bishop in Thrace (the Great Horologion says in Berea, the Prologue in Varna), where he suffered martyrdom. St Dionysius the Areopagite met and wrote about him, stating that Carpus never began the Liturgy without first receiving a heavenly vision.

From the Prologue: “We must not desire the death of a sinner, but his repentance. Nothing so saddens the Lord who suffered on the Cross for sinners as when we pray to Him for the death of a sinner and his removal from our path. It once happened that the Apostle Carpus lost patience and began to pray God to send death upon two sinful men, the one pagan and the other an apostate from the Faith. The Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Behold, here I am; ready to be crucified again for the salvation of men.’ St Carpus related this event to St Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote it down as a lesson for all in the Church that we must pray for the salvation of sinners and not for their destruction. For the Lord ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (II Peter 3:9).”

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, evangelizer of England (ca. 605)

He is the founder of the Church in southern England, which at that time was almost entirely pagan, though Christianity thrived in the Celtic lands of Ireland, Wales and parts of Scotland. Augustine, a monk at the monastery of St Andrew in Rome, was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead a mission to England. He and a party of about forty monks landed in England in 597; they were received warmly by King Aethelbert, who was baptised by Augustine and thus became the first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxon people. In 601 Pope Gregory made Augustine Archbishop of Britain, and he established his cathedral at Canterbury, where he also established a monastery. Saint Augustine worked unsuccessfully to unite his churches with those of the Irish monks and hierarchs, who followed different liturgical practices, kept a different date of Pascha, and disapproved of the less severe Roman monastic practices introduced by the Archbishop. He reposed in peace.

Holy New Martyr Alexander of Thessalonica (1794)

He was born in Thessalonica and, though baptised a Christian, he accepted Islam as a young man, eventually becoming a Sufi (one of a mystical sect among the Muslims). But in time he began to repent, and concluded that martyrdom was the only way for him to cleanse himself from the stain of his denial of Christ. Having repented, he presented himself to the Turks dressed as a Christian. He was thrown into prison and tortured, but in response to every enticement, threat or torment, he would only say ‘I was born a Christian, and as a Christian I shall die.’ Finally he was sentenced to death, which Alexander joyfully accepted as a sign of God’s forgiveness. He was slain by the sword in Smyrna in 1794.