14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.
15For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God;
17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.
18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.
19For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
20For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
Matthew 9.9-13
(Gospel)
9As Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection office. He said to him, “Follow me.” He got up and followed him.
10As he sat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.
11When the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.
13But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Commemorations
Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patar
Noted in his own time for his wisdom and virtue, he was called Eubolos, meaning “of good counsel.” He was among the first to oppose the heretical writings of Origen. He was bishop in Patara (according to some sources) or Olympia (according to others), then of Tyre in Phoenecia. Under the Emperor Maximinus, he was attacked by the pagans and received the crown of martyrdom in Chalkis in Greece.
St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1363)
For twenty-eight years he lived the ascetical life on Mt Athos as a disciple of St Gregory of Mt Sinai. Later, he founded the monastery of St Mamas, also on Mt Athos. In 1350 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. After four years, he resigned the patriarchal throne to return to the Holy Mountain, but was called back to the throne, where he remained until his death in 1363. He wrote the definitive lives of St Gregory the Sinaite and St Theodosius of Trnovo. He was known to St Maximos Kapsokalyvia (the Hut-burner), who foretold his death: On his final journey to Serbia, on which he died, the Patriarch stopped on Mt Athos, where St Maximos saw him and said, “This elder will not see his flock again, because I hear behind him the hymn over the grave, ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way…’”
Blessed Studios (5th c.)
He was a prominent nobleman and consul in Constantinople. In the City he founded both the Church of St John the Forerunner in 463, and the monastery thereafter called the Studion in honor of him. The Studion monastery nurtured a long line of ascetics, teachers, and martyrs; perhaps the best known is St Theodore the Studite (November 11), the great defender of the holy icons. The monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1204, restored in 1293 by Emperor Andronicus II.