Colossians 2.13-20 (Epistle)

13You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross. 15Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

16Let no one therefore judge you in eating or drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, 17which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s. 18Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth.

20If you died with Christ from the elemental spirits of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,

Luke 12.13-15, 22-31 (Gospel)

13One of the multitude said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” 15He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.”

22He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear. 23Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24Consider the ravens: they don’t sow, they don’t reap, they have no warehouse or barn, and God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds! 25Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his height? 26If then you aren’t able to do even the least things, why are you anxious about the rest? 27Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28But if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which today exists and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith?

29“Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. 30For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. 31But seek God’s Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.

Ven. Joannicus the Great

He was born in Bithynia of peasant stock. He worked as a swineherd, then became an officer in the Imperial army, where he served with such distinction in the war against the Bulgars that the Emperor Constantine VI wanted to take him into his personal service. “But the sight of massacres and horrors of war had brought home to him the vanity of this life. He asked leave of the Emperor to retire from the service, in order to wage unseen warfare in the ranks of the angelic army” (Synaxarion). In the coming years he traveled widely, sometimes living as a hermit, sometimes living in monasteries, more than once founding a monastic community. Wherever he went he lived in stillness, solitude and strict asceticism. He was famed for his spiritual counsel, his prophecies, his many miracles of healing ailments bodily and spiritual, and for his friendship with animals. Once a monk who doubted the Saint’s miracles was eating at table with him when a large bear burst in upon them. Joannicius called the bear and it came and lay at his feet; he then told it to lie at the feet of his frightened guest and said “At their creation, the animals looked with veneration on man, who is made in the image of God, and he had no fear of them. We are afraid of them now because we have transgressed God’s commandments. If we love the Lord Jesus and keep his commandments, no animal will be able to do us any harm.” The monk departed greatly edified.

In the last years of Joannicius’ life, when he was about ninety years old, the Emperor Theophilus sought his counsel on the veneration of icons. The Saint’s answer was pointed: “Whoever refuses due honor to the images of Christ, of the Mother of God and of the Saints, will not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven, even if he has lived an otherwise blameless life.”

Once Joannicius traveled to Constantinople to aid the Patriarch in some matters concerning the order of the Church. When he returned to his hermitage, he found that some jealous monks had set it on fire. Knowing who they were, he nevertheless addressed them kindly and invited them to share with him some food that he had managed to salvage from the fire. He did not attempt to rebuild his hermitage, but, taking the fire as a sign of his impending departure from this life, he traveled to the monastery of Antidion, where he had first entered into the monastic life and there, having predicted the day of his death, he reposed in peace. At the moment of his death, the monks of Mt Olympus saw a pillar of fire ascending from the earth to the sky.

The Saint’s relics have been the source of many miracles. His skull is kept and venerated at the Monastery of the Pantocrator on Mt Athos. The widely-used prayer “My hope is the Father; my refuge is the Son; my shelter is the Holy Spirit; O Holy Trinity, glory be to Thee!” is attributed to St Joannicius.