1 John 1.8-2.6 (Epistle)

8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. 2And he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. 3This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments. 4One who says, “I know him,” and doesn’t keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth isn’t in him. 5But God’s love has most certainly been perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know that we are in him: 6he who says he remains in him ought himself also to walk just like he walked.

Mark 13.31-14.2 (Gospel)

31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

32“But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is.

34“It is like a man traveling to another country, having left his house and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch. 35Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming—whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning; 36lest, coming suddenly, he might find you sleeping. 37What I tell you, I tell all: Watch!”

1It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might seize him by deception and kill him. 2For they said, “Not during the feast, because there might be a riot among the people.”

Ven. Martinian of Caesarea

“The life of this saint is wonderful beyond measure and is worth reading in full. What did he not endure to fulfil the Law of God? At the age of eighteen, he went off into a mountain in Cappadocia called the Ark and spent 25 years in fasting, vigils and prayer, and struggling with manifold temptations. When a woman came to tempt him and he saw that he would fall into sin with her, he leapt barefoot into the fire and stood in it until the pain brought forth tears from his eyes and he had killed all lust within himself. When other temptations arose, he fled to a lonely rock in the sea and lived there. When, though, in a shipwreck, a woman swam to the rock, he leapt into the sea intending to drown himself. But a dolphin took him upon its back and brought him, by God’s providence, to the shore. He then decided to make nowhere his permanent home but to travel incessantly. Thus he passed through 164 towns in two years, exhorting and advising the people. He finally arrived in Athens, where he died in 422.” (Prologue)

Holy Apostles and Martyrs Priscilla and Aquila

Aquila and his wife Priscilla (or Prisca) were Jews from Pontus who settled in Rome, where they worked as tent-makers. When the Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome in 49-50, they moved to Corinth. (They may already have been Christians; at that time the Empire made no distinction between Christians and Jews.) In Corinth they hosted the Apostle Paul, who lived and worked with them for awhile (Acts 18:1-3). They worked diligently with the Apostle, traveled with him, and were considered worthy to bring Apollos (December 8) to a full knowledge of the Faith (Acts 18:26)

Priscilla and Aquila returned to Rome around 58, and later went to Ephesus; they were living there when St Paul asked his disciple Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus, to greet them (2 Tim. 4:19). It was probably in Ephesus that they were martyred by the pagans.

St Symeon the Myrrh-streamer, founder of the Chilandar Monastery (1200)

He was born in 1114. In the world, he ruled the kingdom of Serbia as Stephen Nemanja; after ruling wisely and mercifully for many years, he renounced all worldly wealth and glory in 1196 to become a monk. Traveling to the Holy Mountain, he took for his spiritual father his own son Sava, who had preceded him in renouncing royal honor for a life of prayer. Together Symeon (as he was named in monastic life) and his son founded Hilandar monastery. His wife Anna became a nun, taking the name Anastasia; she is also commemorated as a saint of the Church. After his repose, St Symeon’s relics exuded a fragrant and healing myrrh. Saint Sava brought his father’s holy relics back to Serbia. The Synaxarion says “From Saint Symeon’s empty tomb at Chilandar, a vine miraculously sprang up whose dried grape seeds are to this day sent all over the world as a blessing for childless married couples.”