Acts 4.1-10 (Epistle)

1As they spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them, 2being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 3They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening. 4But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

5In the morning, their rulers, elders, and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem. 6Annas the high priest was there, with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and as many as were relatives of the high priest. 7When they had stood Peter and John in the middle of them, they inquired, “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?”

8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “You rulers of the people and elders of Israel, 9if we are examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, 10may it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands here before you whole in him.

John 3.16-21 (Gospel)

16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only born Son of God. 19This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. 20For everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. 21But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God.”

St Basil the Confessor, Bishop of Parium

In the dark days of iconoclasm, this holy bishop refused to sign the imperial order condemning the veneration of icons, and for this was cruelly persecuted in many ways by the heretics for the remainder of his life; all the while he remained ‘firm as a diamond in his Orthodoxy.’ (Prologue)

St Isaac the Syrian, abbot of Spoleto, Italy (ca. 550)

This is not the famed Isaac of Syria (commemorated Jan 28) who wrote the Ascetical Homilies, but a monk who settled in Spoleto and was famed for his holy, solitary life, his miracles, and his discernment. The people of Spoleto sought to honor him with money and other gifts, but he refused everything and withdrew to a cell in the forest. Soon a large monastery grew up there as others joined him in his life of prayer.

Once, two nearly naked men came begging clothing from Isaac. He told a monk to go to a hollow tree some distance away, and to bring back what he found there. The monk returned with some clothing, and gave it to the beggars. They were shamed to find that it was their own clothing, which they had hidden in the tree.

A man gave two beehives to the monastery. A monk hid one of them and brought the other to the abbot. Isaac said to him, ‘Be careful when you go back to the beehive that you hid: it has been taken over by poisonous snakes. Be careful that they do not bite you.’

Our Holy Mother Athanasia (860)

“Born on the island of Aegina of rich and eminent parents, she gave her goods to the poor and went off to a monastery, where she heaped greater and greater asceticism on herself. She took food only once a day, and that only bread and water, and in the Great Fast only once every two days. Only at Christmas and Easter did she taste flesh and oil. Although she was abbess of the monastery, she was the servant of all the other sisters and was ashamed that any should wait on her. She was made worthy of the great gift of wonderworking, both during her lifetime and after her death.” (Prologue)