1Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
3For I say through the grace that was given me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.
Matthew 10.37-11.1 (Gospel)
37He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
38He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me isn’t worthy of me.
39He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
40“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.
41He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. He who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.
42Whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, most certainly I tell you, he will in no way lose his reward.”
1When Jesus had finished directing his twelve disciples, he departed from there to teach and preach in their cities.
Commemorations
Martyr Hyacinth
He was a young courtier to the Emperor Trajan, and a secret Christian. When the Emperor and his court were offering sacrifice to the idols, Hyacinth stood apart; he was noticed and brought before the Emperor where, when interrogated, he proclaimed himself a Christian and refused to make sacrifice to the pagan gods. For this he was brutally whipped, then thrown into prison, where the Emperor ordered that he be given only food that had been sacrificed to idols. This Hyacinth refused to eat and, after eight days, died in prison.
Our Holy Father Isaiah the Solitary (491)
One of the Desert Fathers, he lived in asceticism first at Scetis in Egypt, then in Palestine; he died in Gaza. His instructive writings are often quoted by the Fathers.
Abba Isaiah said: The crown of all good works consists in this: that a man place all his hope in God, that he flee to Him once and for all with all his heart and strength, that he be filled with compassion for all and weep before God, imploring His help and mercy.
Our Holy Father Alexander, founder of the Monastery of the Unsleeping Ones (430)
“Born in Asia and educated in Constantinople, he went into the army after completing his studies and became an officer. Reading the Holy Scriptures, he came upon the Saviour’s words: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me’ (Matt. 19:21). These words made such an impression on him that he sold and gave away all that he had, and went off to the desert. After long asceticism and striving for purification, he founded the community of the ‘Wakeful Ones’ (Acoemetae) with a special rule. According to this rule, the services in the church continued day and night in unbroken sequence. The brethren were divided into six groups, each having its appointed hours of day or night to go to church and take over the reading and singing from the previous group. He travelled a great deal over the East, bringing people to faith in Christ, disputing with heretics, working miracles by God’s grace and growing old in the service of the Lord Jesus. He finished his earthly course in Constantinople in the year 430, where his relics revealed the miraculous power and glory with which God had glorified His holy servant.” (Prologue)
Our Father among the Saints Anatolios, Archbishop of Constantinople (458)
He was a priest from Alexandria. At the ‘Robber Council’ at Ephesus in 449, Dioscoros, the monophysite who occupied the Patriarchal throne in Alexandria, had Anatolios installed as Patriarch of Constantinople, thinking that he would prove an ally. But Anatolios quickly emerged as a fervent champion of Orthodoxy: he convened a council of bishops just before the Council of Chalcedon in 451, at which Pope Leo’s Orthodox “Tome” (see February 18) was approved, though Dioscoros had not allowed it to be read at the Robber Council. At the Council of Chalcedon, Anatolios condemned Nestorius, Eutyches, and his frustrated patron Dioscoros. He reposed in peace in 458.
Anatolios is believed to be the author of the ‘Anatolian Stichera’ found in the weekly Vespers and Matins services; but these may have been composed by another Anatolios, a monk and a disciple of St Theodore the Studite.