4Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed.
5But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
6Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
8Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”
9Is this blessing then pronounced only on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.
10How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
11He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.
12He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.
Matthew 7.15-21
(Gospel)
15“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
16By their fruits you will know them. Do you gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles?
17Even so, every good tree produces good fruit, but the corrupt tree produces evil fruit.
18A good tree can’t produce evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree produce good fruit.
19Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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.