1 John 4.20-5.21 (Epistle)

20If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.

1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. 3For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous. 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

6This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7For there are three who testify: 8the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one. 9If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son. 10He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11The testimony is this: that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.

13These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

14This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. 15And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.

16If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I don’t say that he should make a request concerning this. 17All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.

18We know that whoever is born of God doesn’t sin, but he who was born of God keeps himself, and the evil one doesn’t touch him. 19We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

21Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Mark 15.1-15 (Gospel)

1Immediately in the morning the chief priests, with the elders, scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, bound Jesus, carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate.

2Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered, “So you say.”

3The chief priests accused him of many things. 4Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!”

5But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate marveled.

6Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whomever they asked of him. 7There was one called Barabbas, bound with his fellow insurgents, men who in the insurrection had committed murder. 8The multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do as he always did for them. 9Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 10For he perceived that for envy the chief priests had delivered him up. 11But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should release Barabbas to them instead. 12Pilate again asked them, “What then should I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?”

13They cried out again, “Crucify him!”

14Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they cried out exceedingly, “Crucify him!”

15Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them, and handed over Jesus, when he had flogged him, to be crucified.

Ven. Xenophon, Mary, and their sons Arcadius and John

Xenophon was a wealthy senator in Constantinople during the reign of Justinian. He and his wife Mary had two sons, Arcadius and John, to whom they gave every advantage of education. When they were of age, Xenophon sent them both to study law in Berytus (Beirut). But the ship on which they set out was wrecked in a storm, and the two brothers were cast ashore, alive but separated, neither knowing whether the other had survived.

Both brothers gave thanks to God for their salvation and, newly conscious of the vanity of earthly things, both became monks: John in Tyre and Arcadius in Jerusalem. Two years later, having heard no news from his sons, Xenophon made inquiries and found that they had never arrived at Beirut, and that they had seemingly perished in a shipwreck. Giving thanks to God, who gives and takes away, both Xenophon and his wife Mary put on coarse garments and went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, they met the spiritual father of Arcadius, who told them that both their sons were alive and that they would soon see them.

By God’s providence, John and Arcadius met one another at Golgotha and, joyfully reunited, spent some time serving Arcadius’ holy Elder. Two days later Xenophon and Mary, visiting the Elder, spent time with their two sons but did not recognize them until the Elder revealed their identity. The parents wept for joy and decided immediately to take up the monastic life themselves. Giving away their considerable wealth, the two entered monasteries in the Holy Land. Both parents and sons went far in the life of prayer, being granted the power to work miracles and foreknow future events.

St Ammonas of Egypt, disciple of St Anthony the Great (350)

“Saint Ammonas was a disciple of Saint Antony the Great and became his successor at the head of the hermits of the outer mountain of Pispir, after having spent fourteen years at Scetis in ceaseless prayer to the Lord to be granted victory over anger. He was afterwards consecrated bishop, probably by Saint Athanasius the Great. He possessed impassibility to the extent of being as though ignorant of the existence of evil, and incapable of passing judgment on anyone.

“One day some people came to ask him to settle a difference among them. The Saint responded by pretending to be insane, and answered a woman who treated him as a madman: ‘You don’t realize how much trouble I’ve given myself in the desert to acquire this madness and I have lost it today because of you!’ On another occasion when he was taken to visit a brother with a bad reputation, he sat on the barrel where [the erring brother’s] concubine was hiding while his accusers searched his cell in vain. Then, taking his leave of the unfortunate man, he simply said: ‘Brother, have a care for yourself!’

“When he was asked which deeds of ascesis are most pleasing to God, he replied: ‘Just sit in your cell and eat a little every day, always keeping the prayer of the Publican in your heart (Luke 18:13), and you can be saved.’ He also said that the fear of God begets moans and tears and these cause joy to arise in the soul, filling it with divine strength to do what is pleasing to God, and that this power from on high establishes us in the company of the Angels. Raised thus from height to height as we humbly pray to be delivered from sin, we shall (he said) receive as if of itself, revelation of the mysteries of God.” (Synaxarion)

Our Holy Mother Paula of Rome (404)

She was born in 347 to a noble family in Rome, and at age sixteen married Toxotius, a prominent nobleman. Though her husband was a pagan, he was devoted to her and gave her freedom to keep a Christian home and rear her children as Christians. They were blessed with five children. When she was thirty-two her husband died suddenly, and Paula resolved to turn her large house in Rome into a monastery. Later she traveled to the Holy Land with her spiritual father St Jerome (June 15). In Bethlehem she established two monasteries, one for women (where she dwelt) and one for St Jerome and his companions. Every day the nuns chanted the entire Psalter, which they were required to learn by heart. Paula was exceptionally austere in her fasting and lavish in her almsgiving, often giving away to the poor even the goods needed by her community for subsistence. She aided her spiritual father and brother Jerome in his controversies with Origen’s followers: St Jerome himself was hot-tempered, and St Paula often exhorted him to confront his enemies with patience and humility.

When she was fifty-six years old, she felt her death approaching, and heard Christ say to her ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone’ (Song of Songs 2:10-11). To this she replied ‘The time of harvest has come. I shall truly see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living,’ and gave up her soul joyfully. Her funeral was attended by throngs of monks, nuns and poor people, all of whom revered her as their mother and benefactress.