[Readingsandsaints] Readings and Saints

Mon Jan 7 05:00:13 CST 2008

Scripture Readings and Saints for Mon Jan 7 2008

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Acts 19:1-8  (Epistle, Forerunner)
1 And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having
passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some
disciples
2 he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you
believed?" So they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether
there is a Holy Spirit."
3 And he said to them, "Into what then were you baptized?" So they
said, "Into John's baptism."
4 Then Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance,
saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come
after him, that is, on Christ Jesus."
5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon
them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
7 Now the men were about twelve in all.
8 And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months,
reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.
Scripture Reading 1 of 2

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John 1:29-34  (Gospel, Forerunner)
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold!
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30 This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred
before me, for He was before me.'
31 I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel,
therefore I came baptizing with water.
32 And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from
heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said
to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him,
this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
Scripture Reading 2 of 2

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Afterfeast of the Theophany of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ
On the first day of the Afterfeast of Theophany, the Church extols St
John the Baptist as the greatest man born of a woman. He surpasses all
the ancient prophets because he baptized the Messiah, Whose coming he
foretold.
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Synaxis of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist
John
In the Orthodox Church it is customary, on the day following the Great
Feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God, to remember those saints who
participated directly in the sacred event. So, on the day following
the Theophany of the Lord, the Church honors the one who participated
directly in the Baptism of Christ, placing his own hand upon the head
of the Savior.
St John, the holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, whom the Lord
called the greatest of the prophets, concludes the history of the Old
Testament and opens the era of the New Testament. The holy Prophet
John bore witness to the Only-Begotten Son of God, incarnate in the
flesh. St John was accounted worthy to baptize Him in the waters of
the Jordan, and he was a witness of the Theophany of the Most Holy
Trinity on the day of the Savior's Baptism.
The holy Prophet John was related to the Lord on His mother's side,
the son of the Priest Zachariah and Righteous Elizabeth. The holy
Forerunner, John, was born six months before Christ. The Archangel
Gabriel announced his birth in the Temple at Jerusalem, revealing to
Zachariah that a son was to be born to him.
Through the prayers offered beforehand, the child was filled with the
Holy Spirit. St John prepared himself in the wilds of the desert for
his great service by a strict life, by fasting, prayer and sympathy
for the fate of God's people.
At the age of thirty, he came forth preaching repentance. He appeared
on the banks of the Jordan, to prepare the people by his preaching to
accept the Savior of the world. In church hymnology, St John is called
a "bright morning star," whose gleaming outshone the brilliance of all
the other stars, announcing the coming dawn of the day of grace,
illumined with the light of the spiritual Sun, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Having baptized the sinless Lamb of God, St John soon died a martyr's
death, beheaded by the sword on orders of King Herod at the request of
his daughter Salome. (On St John the Baptist, see Mt.3:1-16, 11:1-19,
14:1-12; Mark 1:2-8, 6:14-29; Luke 1:5-25, 39-80, 3:1-20, 7:18-35,
9:7-9; John 1:19-34, 3:22-26). The Transfer of the Right Hand of the
holy Forerunner from Antioch to Constantinople (956) and the Miracle
of Saint John the Forerunner against the Hagarenes (Moslems) at Chios:
The body of Saint John the Baptist was buried in the Samaritan city of
Sebaste. The holy Evangelist Luke,who went preaching Christ in various
cities and towns, came to Sebaste, where they gave him the right hand
of the holy Prophet John, the very hand with which he had baptized the
Savior. The Evangelist Luke took it with him to his native city of
Antioch.
When the Moslems seized Antioch centuries later, a deacon named Job
brought the holy hand of the Forerunner from Antioch to Chalcedon.
>From there, on the eve of the Theophany of the Lord, it was
transferred to Constantinople (956) and kept thereafter.
In the year 1200, the Russian pilgrim Dobrynya, who later became St
Anthony, Archbishop of Novgorod (February 10), saw the right hand of
the Forerunner in the imperial palace. From the Lives of the Saints we
learn that in the year 1263, during the capture of Constantinople by
the Crusaders, the emperor Baldwin gave one bone from the wrist of St
John the Baptist to Ottonus de Cichon, who then gave it to a
Cistercian abbey in France.
The right hand continued to be kept in Constantinople. And at the end
of the fourteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, the
holy relic was seen at Constantinople in the Peribleptos monastery by
the Russian pilgrims Stephen of Novgorod, the deacon Ignatius, the
cantor Alexander and the deacon Zosimus. When Constantinople fell to
the Turks in 1453, sacred objects were gathered up at the the
conqueror's orders and kept under lock in the imperial treasury.
In the Lives of the Saints is clear testimony that in the year 1484
the right hand of the holy Forerunner was given away by the son of the
Moslem sultan Bayazet to the knights of Rhodes to gain their good
will, since a dangerous rival for Bayazet, his own brother, had allied
himself with them. A contemporary participant, the vice-chancellor of
Rhodes, Wilhelm Gaorsan Gallo, also speaks of this event. The knights
of Rhodes, having established their base on the island of Malta (in
the Mediterranean Sea), then transferred the sacred relic they had
received to Malta.
When the Russian Tsar Paul I (1796-1801) became Grand Master of the
Maltese Order in honor of the holy Prophet John, the right hand of the
Baptist, part of the Life-Creating Cross and the Philermos Icon
(October 12) of the Mother of God (from Mt Philermos on the island of
Rhodes) were transferred in 1799 from the island of Malta to Russia
[because of the Napoleonic threat], to the chapel at Gatchina (October
12). In the same year these sacred items were transferred into the
church dedicated to the Icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands at the
Winter Palace. A special service was composed for this Feast.
Besides the Synaxis of the honorable, glorious Prophet, Forerunner and
Baptist John, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates his memory on the
following days: September 23, his Conception; June 24, his Nativity;
August 29, his Beheading; February 24, the First and Second Finding of
his Head; May 25, the Third Finding of his Head; October 12, the
Transfer of his Right Hand from Malta to Gatchina (1799).
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St Pachomius of Keno Lake
Saint Pachomius is commemorated on the Saturday after Theophany. He
founded a monastery dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Lord near
Lake Keno, and tonsured St Anthony of Siya (December 7) as a monk in
1508. He did not entrust St Anthony to one of the other monks, but he
himself took him under his wing and trained him in asceticism and in
the spiritual life. St Anthony possessed every virtue and resisted
every temptation, purifyied his mind and soul from the passions, and
freed himself from worldly attachments.
When the time came for St Anthony to leave the monastery and live in
solitude, St Pachomius blessed him to follow this path saying,."May
the Lord bless you, my child. May the Lord's will be done."
St Pachomius was a great ascetic and a clairvoyant Elder, a good and
faithful servant who entered into the joy of his Lord in 1515.
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St Brannock of Braunton
St Brannock lived in the sixth century, and tutored the children of
the Welsh ruler Brychan. He went with King Brychan on a pilgrimage to
venerate the tombs of the Apostles. On the way home, he stopped in
Brittany and remained there several years.
Eventually, the saint returned to Wales and settled at Braunton, where
he built a church. His holy relics are said to rest beneath the altar
of the Braunton church.
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St Cedd of Lastingham
No information available at this time.
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