19Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.
20Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets;
22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction,
23for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
24being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance;
26to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time, that he might himself be just and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.
Matthew 7.1-8
(Gospel)
1“Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged.
2For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.
3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye?
4Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye?
5You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.
6“Don’t give that which is holy to the dogs, neither throw your pearls before the pigs, lest perhaps they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
7“Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you.
8For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.
Commemorations
Apostles Carpus and Alphaeus of the Seventy
He was one of the Seventy and a companion of St Paul, who mentions him in 2 Timothy 4:13. He became a Bishop in Thrace (the Great Horologion says in Berea, the Prologue in Varna), where he suffered martyrdom. St Dionysius the Areopagite met and wrote about him, stating that Carpus never began the Liturgy without first receiving a heavenly vision.
From the Prologue: “We must not desire the death of a sinner, but his repentance. Nothing so saddens the Lord who suffered on the Cross for sinners as when we pray to Him for the death of a sinner and his removal from our path. It once happened that the Apostle Carpus lost patience and began to pray God to send death upon two sinful men, the one pagan and the other an apostate from the Faith. The Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Behold, here I am; ready to be crucified again for the salvation of men.’ St Carpus related this event to St Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote it down as a lesson for all in the Church that we must pray for the salvation of sinners and not for their destruction. For the Lord ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance’ (II Peter 3:9).”
Saint Augustine of Canterbury, evangelizer of England (ca. 605)
He is the founder of the Church in southern England, which at that time was almost entirely pagan, though Christianity thrived in the Celtic lands of Ireland, Wales and parts of Scotland. Augustine, a monk at the monastery of St Andrew in Rome, was chosen by Pope Gregory I to lead a mission to England. He and a party of about forty monks landed in England in 597; they were received warmly by King Aethelbert, who was baptised by Augustine and thus became the first Christian king of the Anglo-Saxon people. In 601 Pope Gregory made Augustine Archbishop of Britain, and he established his cathedral at Canterbury, where he also established a monastery. Saint Augustine worked unsuccessfully to unite his churches with those of the Irish monks and hierarchs, who followed different liturgical practices, kept a different date of Pascha, and disapproved of the less severe Roman monastic practices introduced by the Archbishop. He reposed in peace.
Holy New Martyr Alexander of Thessalonica (1794)
He was born in Thessalonica and, though baptised a Christian, he accepted Islam as a young man, eventually becoming a Sufi (one of a mystical sect among the Muslims). But in time he began to repent, and concluded that martyrdom was the only way for him to cleanse himself from the stain of his denial of Christ. Having repented, he presented himself to the Turks dressed as a Christian. He was thrown into prison and tortured, but in response to every enticement, threat or torment, he would only say ‘I was born a Christian, and as a Christian I shall die.’ Finally he was sentenced to death, which Alexander joyfully accepted as a sign of God’s forgiveness. He was slain by the sword in Smyrna in 1794.