Romans 11.25-36 (Epistle)

25For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 26and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 27This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”

28Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. 29For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 31even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32For God has bound all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.

33Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! 34“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 35“Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”

36For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.

Matthew 12.1-8 (Gospel)

1At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, “Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

3But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4how he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. 7But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patar

Noted in his own time for his wisdom and virtue, he was called Eubolos, meaning “of good counsel.” He was among the first to oppose the heretical writings of Origen. He was bishop in Patara (according to some sources) or Olympia (according to others), then of Tyre in Phoenecia. Under the Emperor Maximinus, he was attacked by the pagans and received the crown of martyrdom in Chalkis in Greece.

St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1363)

For twenty-eight years he lived the ascetical life on Mt Athos as a disciple of St Gregory of Mt Sinai. Later, he founded the monastery of St Mamas, also on Mt Athos. In 1350 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. After four years, he resigned the patriarchal throne to return to the Holy Mountain, but was called back to the throne, where he remained until his death in 1363. He wrote the definitive lives of St Gregory the Sinaite and St Theodosius of Trnovo. He was known to St Maximos Kapsokalyvia (the Hut-burner), who foretold his death: On his final journey to Serbia, on which he died, the Patriarch stopped on Mt Athos, where St Maximos saw him and said, “This elder will not see his flock again, because I hear behind him the hymn over the grave, ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way…’”

Blessed Studios (5th c.)

He was a prominent nobleman and consul in Constantinople. In the City he founded both the Church of St John the Forerunner in 463, and the monastery thereafter called the Studion in honor of him. The Studion monastery nurtured a long line of ascetics, teachers, and martyrs; perhaps the best known is St Theodore the Studite (November 11), the great defender of the holy icons. The monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1204, restored in 1293 by Emperor Andronicus II.