[Readingsandsaints] Readings and Saints

Wed Sep 26 05:00:21 CDT 2007

Scripture Readings and Saints for Wed Sep 26 2007

----------------------------------------------------
------ READINGS FOR TODAY ----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------

1 John 3:21-4:6  (Vespers, 1st Reading)
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence
toward God.
22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His
commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of
His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.
24 Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And
by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given
us.
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether
they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the
world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist,
which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He
who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the
world hears them.
6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does
not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of
error.
Scripture Reading 1 of 6

-----------------------------

1 John 4:11-16  (Vespers, 2nd Reading)
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides
in us, and His love has been perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has
given us of His Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as
Savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him,
and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is
love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Scripture Reading 2 of 6

-----------------------------

1 John 4:20-5:5  (Vespers, 3rd Reading)
20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love
God whom he has not seen?
21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must
love his brother also.
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and
everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of
Him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God
and keep His commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His
commandments are not burdensome.
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the
victory that has overcome the world-our faith.
5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is
the Son of God?
Scripture Reading 3 of 6

-----------------------------

John 21:15-25  (Matins Gospel)
15 So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,
"Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?" He said to Him,
"Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Feed My
lambs."
16 He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you
love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He
said to him, "Tend My sheep."
17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love
Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you
love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know
that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep.
18 Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded
yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will
stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where
you do not wish.
19 This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And
when He had spoken this, He said to him, "Follow Me."
20 Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved
following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said,
"Lord, who is the one who betrays You?"
21 Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?"
22 Jesus said to him, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is
that to you? You follow Me."
23 Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple
would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die,
but, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you?"
24 This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these
things; and we know that his testimony is true.
25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they
were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
Scripture Reading 4 of 6

-----------------------------

1 John 4:12-19  (Epistle, Apostle)
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides
in us, and His love has been perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has
given us of His Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as
Savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him,
and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is
love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because
fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in
love.
19 We love Him because He first loved us.
Scripture Reading 5 of 6

-----------------------------

John 19:25-27; 21:24-25  (Gospel, Apostle)
25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's
sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved
standing by, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!"
27 Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that
hour that disciple took her to his own home.
24 This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these
things; and we know that his testimony is true.
25 And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they
were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
Scripture Reading 6 of 6

----------------------------------------------------
------ SAINTS/FEASTS FOR TODAY ----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------

Repose of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian
The Holy, Glorious All-laudable Apostle and Evangelist, Virgin, and
Beloved Friend of Christ, John the Theologian was the son of Zebedee
and Salome, a daughter of St Joseph the Betrothed. He was called by
our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of His Apostles at the same time as
his elder brother James. This took place at Lake Gennesareth (i.e. the
Sea of Galilee). Leaving behind their father, both brothers followed
the Lord.
The Apostle John was especially loved by the Savior for his
sacrificial love and his virginal purity. After his calling, the
Apostle John did not part from the Lord, and he was one of the three
apostles who were particularly close to Him. St John the Theologian
was present when the Lord restored the daughter of Jairus to life, and
he was a witness to the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.
During the Last Supper, he reclined next to the Lord, and laid his
head upon His breast. He also asked the name of the Savior's betrayer.
The Apostle John followed after the Lord when they led Him bound from
the Garden of Gethsemane to the court of the iniquitous High Priests
Annas and Caiphas. He was there in the courtyard of the High Priest
during the interrogations of his Teacher and he resolutely followed
after him on the way to Golgotha, grieving with all his heart.
At the foot of the Cross he stood with the Mother of God and heard the
words of the Crucified Lord addressed to Her from the Cross: "Woman,
behold Thy son." Then the Lord said to him, "Behold thy Mother" (John
19:26-27). From that moment the Apostle John, like a loving son,
concerned himself over the Most Holy Virgin Mary, and he served Her
until Her Dormition.
After the Dormition of the Mother of God the Apostle John went to
Ephesus and other cities of Asia Minor to preach the Gospel, taking
with him his own disciple Prochorus. They boarded a ship, which
floundered during a terrible tempest. All the travellers were cast up
upon dry ground, and only the Apostle John remained in the depths of
the sea. Prochorus wept bitterly, bereft of his spiritual father and
guide, and he went on towards Ephesus alone.
On the fourteenth day of his journey he stood at the shore of the sea
and saw that the waves had cast a man ashore. Going up to him, he
recognized the Apostle John, whom the Lord had preserved alive for
fourteen days in the sea. Teacher and disciple went to Ephesus, where
the Apostle John preached incessantly to the pagans about Christ. His
preaching was accompanied by such numerous and great miracles, that
the number of believers increased with each day.
During this time there had begun a persecution of Christians under the
emperor Nero (56-68). They took the Apostle John for trial at Rome. St
John was sentenced to death for his confession of faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, but the Lord preserved His chosen one. The apostle drank
a cup of deadly poison, but he remained alive. Later, he emerged
unharmed from a cauldron of boiling oil into which he had been thrown
on orders from the torturer.
After this, they sent the Apostle John off to imprisonment to the
island of Patmos, where he spent many years. Proceeding along on his
way to the place of exile, St John worked many miracles. On the island
of Patmos, his preaching and miracles attracted to him all the
inhabitants of the island, and he enlightened them with the light of
the Gospel. He cast out many devils from the pagan temples, and he
healed a great multitude of the sick.
Sorcerers with demonic powers showed great hostility to the preaching
of the holy apostle. He especially frightened the chief sorcerer of
them all, named Kinops, who boasted that they would destroy the
apostle. But the great John, by the grace of God acting through him,
destroyed all the demonic artifices to which Kinops resorted, and the
haughty sorcerer perished in the depths of the sea.
The Apostle John withdrew with his disciple Prochorus to a desolate
height, where he imposed upon himself a three-day fast. As St John
prayed the earth quaked and thunder rumbled. Prochorus fell to the
ground in fright. The Apostle John lifted him up and told him to write
down what he was about to say. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end, saith the Lord, Who is and Who was and Who is
to come, the Almighty" (Rev 1:8), proclaimed the Spirit of God through
the Apostle John. Thus in about the year 67 the Book of Revelation was
written, known also as the "Apocalypse," of the holy Apostle John the
Theologian. In this Book were predictions of the tribulations of the
Church and of the end of the world.
After his prolonged exile, the Apostle John received his freedom and
returned to Ephesus, where he continued with his activity, instructing
Christians to guard against false teachers and their erroneous
teachings. In the year 95, the Apostle John wrote his Gospel at
Ephesus. He called for all Christians to love the Lord and one
another, and by this to fulfill the commands of Christ. The Church
calls St John the "Apostle of Love", since he constantly taught that
without love man cannot come near to God.
In his three Epistles, St John speaks of the significance of love for
God and for neighbor. Already in his old age, he learned of a youth
who had strayed from the true path to follow the leader of a band of
robbers, so St John went out into the wilderness to seek him. Seeing
the holy Elder, the guilty one tried to hide himself, but the Apostle
John ran after him and besought him to stop. He promised to take the
sins of the youth upon himself, if only he would repent and not bring
ruin upon his soul. Shaken by the intense love of the holy Elder, the
youth actually did repent and turn his life around.
St John when he was more than a hundred years old. he far outlived the
other eyewitnesses of the Lord, and for a long time he remained the
only remaining eyewitness of the earthly life of the Savior.
When it was time for the departure of the Apostle John, he went out
beyond the city limits of Ephesus with the families of his disciples.
He bade them prepare for him a cross-shaped grave, in which he lay,
telling his disciples that they should cover him over with the soil.
The disciples tearfully kissed their beloved teacher, but not wanting
to be disobedient, they fulfilled his bidding. They covered the face
of the saint with a cloth and filled in the grave. Learning of this,
other disciples of St John came to the place of his burial. When they
opened the grave, they found it empty.
Each year from the grave of the holy Apostle John on May 8 came forth
a fine dust, which believers gathered up and were healed of sicknesses
by it. Therefore, the Church also celebrates the memory of the holy
Apostle John the Theologian on May 8.
The Lord bestowed on His beloved disciple John and John's brother
James the name "Sons of Thunder" as an awesome messenger in its
cleansing power of the heavenly fire. And precisely by this the Savior
pointed out the flaming, fiery, sacrificial character of Christian
love, the preacher of which was the Apostle John the Theologian. The
eagle, symbol of the lofty heights of his theological thought, is the
iconographic symbol of the Evangelist John the Theologian. The
appellation "Theologian" is bestown by Holy Church only to St John
among the immediate disciples and Apostles of Christ, as being the
seer of the mysterious Judgments of God.
_________________________________________________________________
Venerable Ephraim the Abbot of Perekop the Wonderworker of
Novgorod
Saint Ephraim of Perekop, Novgorod, was born on September 20, 1412 in
the city of Kashin. In Holy Baptism he was named Eustathius. His
parents, Stephen and Anna, lived not far from the Kashin women's
monastery named in honor of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos.
Drawn to the solitary life, Eustathius left his parental home while
still in his early years and settled in the Kalyazin monastery of the
Most Holy Trinity. His parents wanted their son to return home, but he
persuaded them to leave the world and accept monasticism. Later, they
also finished their earthly paths living as hermits.
After three years in the monastery, Eustathius, through a miraculous
revelation, transferred to the monastery of St Sava of Vishersk
(October 1). It was there in 1437 that he accepted tonsure with the
name Ephraim. While in the monastery, St Ephraim received a revelation
from the Lord, commanding him to withdraw to a desolate place.
Having received the blessing of St Sava, in 1450 he went to Lake
Ilmen, at the mouth of the River Verenda, and on the banks of the
River Cherna he built a cell. After a certain while the Elder Thomas
and two monks came to St Ephraim, and they settled not far from his
cell. From that time, other hermits also began to gather to the new
monastery. At their request St Ephraim was ordained a priest at
Novgorod by St Euthymius (March 11).
Returning from Novgorod, St Ephraim built a church in honor of the
Theophany of the Lord on an island, at the mouth of the River Verenda.
To secure a ready supply of water for the monastery, the monk dug a
canal to Lake Ilmen, from which the monastery received its name
"Perekop" (from "perekopat'" meaning "to dig through"). Later on, St
Ephraim built a stone church named for St Nicholas the Wonderworker.
Unable to find sufficient skilled builders, he sent several monks to
Great Prince Basil with a request for sending stone-workers. The
construction of the temple was completed in 1466.
St Ephraim reposed on September 26, 1492 and was buried at the church
of St Nicholas. In 1509, because of frequent floodings that threatened
the monastery with ruin, it was transferred to another location at the
shore of Lake Ilmen. St Ephraim appeared to the igumen Romanus and
pointed to the site of Klinkovo for relocating the monastery.
Over the saint's tomb a chapel was built, since all the monastery
churches were in ruins. On May 16, 1545 the relics of St Ephraim were
transferred to the site of the new monastery. On this day there is an
annual celebration of St Ephraim of Perekop at the monastery,
confirmed after the glorification of the holy ascetic at the Council
of 1549. (The Transfer of the Relics of St Ephraim of Perekop is
celebrated May 16).
_________________________________________________________________
Arrival of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God in Georgia
The Iveron Icon of the Mother of God (which is preserved on Mt. Athos)
was kept in the home of a certain pious widow, who lived near Nicea.
During the reign of the emperor Theophilus, the Iconoclasts came to
the house of this Christian, and one of the soldiers struck the image
of the Mother of God with a spear. Blood flowed from the place where
it was struck.
The widow, fearing its destruction, promised the imperial soldiers
money and implored them not to touch the icon until morning. When the
soldiers departed, the woman and her son (later an Athonite monk),
sent the holy icon away upon the sea to preserve it. The icon,
standing upright upon the water, floated to Athos.
For several days, the Athonite monks had seen a fiery pillar on the
sea rising up to the heavens. They came down to the shore and found
the holy image, standing upon the waters. After a Molieben of
thanksgiving, a pious monk of the Iveron monastery, St Gabriel (July
12), had a dream in which the Mother of God appeared to him and gave
him instructions. So he walked across the water, and taking up the
holy icon, he placed it in the church.
On the following day, however, the icon was found not within the
church, but on the gates of the monastery. This was repeated several
times, until the Most Holy Theotokos revealed to St Gabriel Her will,
saying that She did not want the icon to be guarded by the monks, but
rather She intended to be their Protectress. After this, the icon was
installed on the monastery gates. Therefore this icon came to be
called "Portaitissa" or "Gate-Keeper" (October 13). This comes from
the Akathist to the Mother of God: "Rejoice, O Blessed Gate-Keeper who
opens the gates of Paradise to the righteous."
There is a tradition that the Mother of God promised St Gabriel that
the grace and mercy of Her Son toward the monks would continue as long
as the Icon remained at the monastery. It is also believed that the
disappearance of the Iveron Icon from Mt. Athos would be a sign of the
end of the world.
The Iveron Icon is also commemorated on February 12, March 31, October
13 (Its arrival in Moscow in 1648), and Bright Tuesday (Commemorating
the appearance of the Icon in a pillar of fire at Mt. Athos and its
recovery by St Gabriel).
On September 26, 1989, a copy of this famous icon arrived in Tbilisi,
Georgia from the Iveron Monastery on mt. Athos. This copy had been
painted by the monks on Mt. Athos as a symbol of love and gratitude to
the Georgian people.
_________________________________________________________________