1 Corinthians 4.5-8 (Epistle)

5Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

6Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another. 7For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

8You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you!

Matthew 13.44-54 (Gospel)

44“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

47“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some fish of every kind, 48which, when it was filled, fishermen drew up on the beach. They sat down and gathered the good into containers, but the bad they threw away. 49So it will be in the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous, 50and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

51Jesus said to them, “Have you understood all these things?” They answered him, “Yes, Lord.”

52He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things.”

53When Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there. 54Coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?

Virgin Martyr Febronia

Though the daughter of a Roman senator and a great beauty, she fled the world and entered a monastery in Mesopotamia. (So great was her beauty that the abbess had her stand behind a screen while reading to her monastic sisters.) At that time the Emperor Diocletian sent a certain Selenus, along with his nephew Lysimachus, on a mission to find and destroy Christians in the East. Though Selenus was a fierce persecutor of the Christians, Lysimachus felt sympathy for them and secretly protected them whenever he could. Selenus and his party came to Nisibis, where Febronia’s virtue and holiness had already become well-known, though she was still only twenty years old. Selenus summoned her and made every effort to convince her to renounce her faith. When she stood firm, she was first viciously dismembered then beheaded. Lysimachus gathered her relics and took them to the monastery for burial. At the monastery he, together with many soldiers, were baptized. The holy Febronia’s relics worked many healings, and she herself appeared to the other nuns on the anniversary of her repose, standing in her usual place among her sisters. Her relics were translated to Constantinople in 363.

Our Holy Father Dionysios, founder of the Monastery of St John the Forerunner on Mt Athos (1380)

He was born in Koritza in Albania. His elder brother Theodosius went to the Holy Mountain and in time became abbot of the monastery of Philotheou. A few years later Dionysios followed his brother and became a monk under him at Philotheou. A heavenly light began to appear to Dionysios every night at the same place, some distance from his monastery. Believing that the light was a divine sign that he was to build a monastery, Dionysios left the Holy Mountain to seek the help of his brother (now Metropolitan of Trebizond) and the Emperor Alexios Comnenis. From the Emperor he received both money and a Royal Charter, which is still kept at the Monastery of St John the Forerunner, which Dionysios founded in 1380, and which is often referred to as the Dionysiou Monastery. Later, pirates plundered the monastery, and Dionysius went to Trebizond, where he reposed at the age of seventy-two.