1But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they and some others came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared.
2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
3They entered in, and didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body.
4While they were greatly perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling clothing.
5Becoming terrified, they bowed their faces down to the earth. The men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
6He isn’t here, but is risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee,
7saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again?”
8They remembered his words,
9returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
10Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles.
11These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.
12But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he departed to his home, wondering what had happened.
Ephesians 5.8-19 (Epistle)
8For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
9for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth,
10proving what is well pleasing to the Lord.
11Have no fellowship with the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather even reprove them.
12For it is a shame even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
13But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light.
14Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
15Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise,
16redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17Therefore, don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
19speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
Luke 12.16-21 (Gospel)
16He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly.
17He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’
18He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
19I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”’
20“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’
21So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Commemorations
St Gregory the Wonderworker
He was born to a prominent pagan family in Neocaesarea, where Christianity was at the time almost unknown. Nonetheless, Gregory found and embraced the faith of Christ at an early age. His parents educated him at the finest schools of the day in Athens, Alexandria, and Beirut; he and his brother spent five years studying under the great Origen, though, the Synaxarion is quick to note, “They possessed enough discernment, however, to avoid certain errors into which Origen was led by the excessive boldness of his speculations about the mysteries of God.”
Refusing many tempting offers of worldly position, Gregory withdrew to the wilderness to live in ascesis. However, the Archbishop of Amesia, familiar with his holiness and ability, consecrated him Bishop of Neocaesarea against his will, and Gregory in obedience took up his see at about the age of thirty.
When he entered the city as bishop, it contained only seventeen Christians. Through the Saint’s tireless and grace-filled preaching, and through the steady stream of miracles that he wrought there, he brought so many to the faith that when he died, only seventeen of the city’s inhabitants were still pagans.
Bishop Gregory’s countless miracles were so famed that he became known to all as the Wonderworker. Once, the Most Holy Mother of God appeared to him with Saint John the Theologian and revealed divine mysteries to him directly, a grace granted to very few. Even his detractors called him a second Moses. He reposed in peace in 275.
Ven. Nikon of Radonezh
He was born in 1350 in the town of Yuriev-in-the-fields, between Rostov and Radonezh. At a very young age he sought out St Sergius of Radonezh, seeking to be his disciple; but the Saint placed him in another monastery, where he soon became known as the ‘lover of obedience’ for his humility and selflessness. At last, when he was about thirty and had been ordained to the priesthood, he was able to go to Radonezh, where St Sergius, discerning his advanced spiritual state, made Nikon his cell-attendant. At the death of St Sergius, the brethren unanimously elected Nikon as their Abbot. In 1408, St Nikon was warned in an apparition that the monastery would be sacked by Tatars, so he and his monks fled with the monastery’s books and sacred vessels. When they returned they found that the monastery had been burned to the ground. Setting to work immediately, they built a new monastery over the next few years. In 1422 the relics of St Sergius, which had been miraculously preserved in the Tatar attack, were installed in the new monastery church.
The Synaxarion concludes: “Full of years and already transported in spirit to the Kingdom of Heaven, Saint Nikon said to his disciples, ‘Take me from here to the bright church prepared for me by the prayers of my spiritual father. I do not want to stay any longer here below!’ When he had communicated in the holy Mysteries and blessed his brethren one by one, he cried out, ‘O my soul, draw near with joy to the place that has been prepared for thy rest. Draw near with joy because Christ is calling thee!’ Then he fell asleep in peace. He was laid to rest opposite the tomb of Saint Sergius. Since then he has often appeared with Saint Sergius in order to heal the sick or to protect the Holy Trinity Lavra in times of danger.”
Our Holy Father Longinus (4th or 5th c.)
“Our holy Father Longinus lived in the Egyptian deserts during the fourth or fifth century. Among other sayings of his, are the following: A dead man judges no one, and it is just the same with the man who is humble. To someone who wanted to go to live in exile, he replied: Unless you guard your tongue, you will not be able to live in exile wherever you go. To someone else who wanted to live in solitude, he said: If you do not exercise the virtues in the midst of men, still less will you be able to do so in solitude. By his life and his words he taught love of humility as superior to all the works of ascesis, saying: Fasting humbles the body, vigil purifies the intellect and stillness leads to the affliction that baptizes man anew and cleanses him of all sin.
We also owe to him the famous saying: Shed your blood and receive the Spirit.” (Synaxarion)
Our Holy Mother Hilda, Abbess of Whitby (680)
A noble kinswoman of St Edwin, king of Northumbria (commemorated October 12), Hilda was baptized at a young age through the preaching of St Paulinus, one of the first missionaries sent from Rome to British Isles. At the age of thirty-three she renounced the world and entered monastic life. At first, she sought to enter a monastery near Paris in Gaul, but she was called back to her homeland by St Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne (August 31), who, discerning her already-apparent spiritual gifts, set her as Abbess of a small monastery. As her gifts of discernment and spiritual guidance became more widely-known, she led larger monasteries, finally establishing the Monastery of Whitby in 657. The Saint spent the next thirty-three years directing the Monastery, which became a beacon of Christian life throughout the British Isles and beyond. The Monastery was unusual by modern standards in that it comprised both a women’s and a men’s monastic house, with Mother Hilda as spiritual head of both. The community became a training-ground for priests and bishops who went on to spread the Gospel of Christ throughout Britain.
Commoners, kings and Bishop Aidan himself came regularly to her for spiritual counsel, and she was in her own lifetime regarded as the Mother of her country. For the last six years of her life she was afflicted with an unremitting burning fever, but she continued her holy work undeterred until her repose in 680. At the moment of her death, Saint Begu, in a different monastery, was awakened by a vision of Hilda’s soul being borne up to heaven by a company of angels.
The Synaxarion concludes, “Saint Hilda, like her contemporaries Saint Etheldreda (23 June) and Saint Ebba (25 Aug.), belongs to that monastic company of women of royal birth who exercised a formative influence in the English Church of the seventh century, but she is also a rare example of a spiritual Mother, who received from God the gift of directing not only nuns but monks and bishops as well; for in the Lord Jesus there is neither male nor female, but a new creation (Gal. 3:28).”