6And he said to me, It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to establish the tribes of Jacob, and to recover the dispersion of Israel: behold, I have given you for the covenant of a race, for a light of the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the end of the earth.
7Thus says the Lord that delivered you, the God of Israel, Sanctify him that despises his life, him that is abhorred by the nations that are the servants of princes: kings shall behold him, and princes shall arise, and shall worship him, for the Lord's sake: for the Holy One of Israel is faithful, and I have chosen you.
8Thus says the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I succored you: and I have formed you, and given you for a covenant of the nations, to establish the earth, and to cause to inherit the desert heritages:
9saying to them that are in bonds, Go forth; and bidding them that are in darkness show themselves. They shall be fed in all the ways, and in all the paths shall be their pasture.
10They shall not hunger, neither shall they thirst; neither shall the heat nor the sun strike them; but he that has mercy on them shall comfort them, and by fountains of waters shall he lead them.
Genesis 31.3-16 (Vespers)
3And the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your father, and to your family, and I will be with you.
4And Jacob sent and called Lea and Rachel to the plain where the flocks were.
5And he said to them, I see the face of your father, that it is not toward me as before, but the God of my father was with me.
6And you⌃ too know that with all my might I have served your father.
7But your father deceived me, and changed my wages for the ten lambs, yet God gave him not power to hurt me.
8If he should say thus, The speckled shall be your reward, then all the cattle would bear speckled; and if he should say, The white shall be your reward, then would all the cattle bear white.
9So God has taken away all the cattle of your father, and given them to me.
10And it came to pass when the cattle conceived and were with young, that I saw with my eyes in sleep, and behold the he-goats and the rams leaping on the sheep and the she-goats, speckled and variegated and spotted with ash-colored spots.
11And the angel of God said to me in a dream, Jacob; and I said, What is it?
12And he said, Look up with your eyes, and behold the he-goats and the rams leaping on the sheep and the she-goats, speckled and variegated and spotted with ash-colored spots; for I have seen all things that Laban does to you.
13I am God that appeared to you in the place of God where you anointed a pillar to me, and vowed to me there a vow; now then arise and depart out of this land, depart into the land of your nativity, and I will be with you.
14And Rachel and Lea answered and said to him, Have we yet a part or inheritance in the house of our father?
15Are we not considered strangers by him? for he has sold us, and quite devoured our money.
16All the wealth and the glory which God has taken from our father, it shall be our's and our children's; now then do whatever God has said to you.
Proverbs 21.3-21 (Vespers)
3To do justly and to speak truth, are more pleasing to God than the blood of sacrifices.
4A high-minded man is stout-hearted in his pride; and the lamp of the wicked is sin.
6He that gathers treasures with a lying tongue pursues vanity on to the snares of death.
7Destruction shall lodge with the ungodly; for they refuse to do justly.
8To the froward God sends froward ways; for his works are pure and right.
9It is better to dwell in a corner on the house-top, than in plastered rooms with unrighteousness, and in an open house.
10The soul of the ungodly shall not be pitied by any man.
11When an intemperate man is punished the simple becomes wiser: and a wise man understanding will receive knowledge.
12A righteous man understands the hearts of the ungodly: and despises the ungodly for their wickedness.
13He that stops his ears from hearing the poor, himself also shall cry, and there shall be none to hear him.
14A secret gift calms anger: but he that forbears to give stirs up strong wrath.
15It is the joy of the righteous to do judgment: but a holy man is abominable with evil-doers.
16A man that wanders out of the way of righteousness, shall rest in the congregation of giants.
17A poor man loves mirth, loving wine and oil in abundance;
18and a transgressor is the abomination of a righteous man.
19It is better to dwell in a wilderness than with a quarrelsome and talkative and passionate woman.
20A desirable treasure will rest on the mouth of the wise; but foolish men will swallow it up.
21The way of righteousness and mercy will find life and glory.
Commemorations
St James the Confessor of Catania
His birthplace and the place of his episcopate are unknown. He was a monk of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, and a disciple of St Theodore the Studite. As a bishop he was severely persecuted by the iconoclasts in the time of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, enduring hunger, imprisonment and mocking, thus earning the title “Confessor.” Saint Theodore wrote a homily in honor of him.
Our Holy Father Serapion (366)
‘A companion of St Antony the Great, he lived in the Nitrian desert, in charge of the monastery of Arsina which contained 11,000 monks. Palladius and Sozomenes gave him the title “the Great”. He entered into rest in about 366. St Serapion wrote: “Do not think that sickness is grave; only sin is grave… Sickness leads us only to the tomb, but sin follows the sinner beyond it”.’ (Prologue)
Saint Seraphim of Vyritsa (1949) (March 21 OC)
Born in 1866, he married and had three children. In 1920, at the age of 54, he and his wife quietly separated and each entered monastic life. Eventually he became the spiritual father of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where, as a clairvoyant staretz, he also confessed thousands of laity. He said, “I am the storage room where people’s afflictions gather.” In imitation of his patron saint, he prayed for a thousand nights on a rock before an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov. He reposed in the Lord in 1949 and the Church of Russia glorified him in August of 2000. Thus his whole life as a monk was spent under Communist persecution.