1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
7even as you learned from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,
8who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
9For this cause, we also, since the day we heard this, don’t cease praying and making requests for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
10that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God,
11strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy,
Luke 11.34-41 (Gospel)
34The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore when your eye is good, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is evil, your body also is full of darkness.
35Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn’t darkness.
36If therefore your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly full of light, as when the lamp with its bright shining gives you light.”
37Now as he spoke, a certain Pharisee asked him to dine with him. He went in and sat at the table.
38When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed himself before dinner.
39The Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness.
40You foolish ones, didn’t he who made the outside make the inside also?
41But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.
Commemorations
Hieromartyr Zenobius and His Sister Zenobia
These two holy ones were brother and sister, living the city of Aegea in Cilicia. When their parents died, they gave all their possessions to the poor. Zenobius, a physician, gave his healing services for free to all who came to him, often relying more upon the holy Name of Jesus than upon medicines. In time, he became Bishop of Aegea. During the persecutions under the Emperor Diocletian, Zenobius was arrested and brought before the governor Lysias, who demanded that he deny Christ and worship the idols. When Zenobius refused, he was subjected to torture. Zenobia, hearing of this, rushed to be with him and openly rebuked the governor. The two were then tortured together and finally beheaded, faithful to their Lord to the end.
Holy Apostle Cleopas
He is numbered among the Seventy. On the day of the Resurrection, Cleopas and St Luke were walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus when the Risen Christ appeared to them, as recounted in the twenty-fourth chapter of St Luke’s Gospel.
The Gospel account does not name St Cleopas’ companion, but the holy tradition of the Church tells us that it was St Luke himself, and thus that the story is a first-hand account.
St Joseph I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1283)
Once a married priest, he entered monastic life when his wife died, and became the spiritual father of the Emperor Michael VIII Paleologus, during whose reign he was elevated to the Patriarchate. Despite this patronage, St Joseph’s integrity was inviolable: At his first Divine Liturgy as Patriarch, he required the Emperor publicly to confess and repent of several sins before admitting him to Communion. He fiercely opposed the Emperor’s expedient policy of union with Rome, and was therefore deposed, retiring once more to monastic life. In old age, he was restored to the Patriarchal throne upon the death of Emperor Michael, but died a few months later.
Holy Martyr Hermengild, Prince of the Visigoths (486)
He was the son and appointed heir of Leuvgild, King of the Visigoths, who had embraced the Christianity of the Arian heretics. But through the teaching of Bishop Leander of Seville (February 27), Hermengild was converted to the fullness of the Orthodox faith, for which his father the King had him thrown in prison. On the day of Pascha 486, the King sent one of his priests to give his son communion. But Hermengild refused, proclaiming that to commune with heretics is to assent to their belief and to sink into their error; going further, he told the priest that the heretics’ communion was nothing but bread and wine, for the Body and Blood of Christ are found only in the Offering made by the Church. The enraged King sent soldiers, who at his orders put his own son to death. Later, the King repented of this inhuman deed and asked Bishop Leander to instruct his youngest son Recared in the Orthodox faith. Thus the Visigoth people was brought into the Faith.
Holy Hieromartyr John Kochurov, First Hieromartyr of the Russian Revolution (1917)
He was born in Russia in 1871, and as a young priest was sent to America as a missionary. There he worked zealously (he was instrumental in the building of the Orthodox cathedral in Chicago) until he was called back to Russia just before the October Revolution in 1917. Only six days after the Bolsheviks seized power, he was beaten to death in the street by a gang of Bolshevik sailors in Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg. Thus he became the first of countless Priest-Martyrs of Russia’s atheist yoke.