Thursday 17 September 2020
Martyr Sophia and Daughters Faith, Hope, and Love
Thursday of the 15th week after Pentecost
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Martyr Sophia and Daughters Faith, Hope, and Love
Sophia ("Wisdom") was a Christian widow of Italy whose three young daughters — Faith, Hope and Love (Pistis, Elpis and Agape; in Slavic use Vera, Nadezhda and Lyubov), aged twelve, ten and nine — were tortured and beheaded at Rome under the emperor Hadrian (117–138), the mother being compelled to watch. Burying her children on a hill outside the city, Sophia kept vigil at their grave and died there on the third day; the Church crowns her as a martyr in heart though not in blood. Their relics have been venerated at Eschau in Alsace since 777. They are commemorated together on September 17.
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Our Holy Father Lambert, Bishop of Maastricht (705)
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Agathoclia
Agathoclia was a Christian slave in the household of a man named Nicolas, himself a Christian, and his pagan wife Paulina. For eight years her mistress tormented her for her faith — beatings, forced walking barefoot over sharp stones, a rib broken with a hammer, her tongue cut out, and starvation in confinement — and, unable to break her, finally killed her. The synaxaria transmit no place or date for her contest. She is commemorated on September 17.
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Herakleides and Myron of Tamassos
Herakleides and Myron were bishops of Tamassos in Cyprus in the apostolic age. Herakleides, a Cypriot who guided the apostles Barnabas and Mark through the island, was baptised by them and consecrated first bishop of Tamassos by Barnabas; Myron was his successor in the see. Both ended their episcopates in martyrdom — the synaxarion verses say they were given to the pyre, "offered to Christ like the fragrance of myrrh." Their joint memory is kept on September 17, above all at the monastery of Saint Herakleidios near ancient Tamassos, where the first bishop's relics rest.
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156 Martyrs of Palestine
The 156 Martyrs of Palestine were confessors — most of them Egyptians, with Palestinians among them — condemned to the mines of Palestine in the last great persecution and put to death about the year 310 under the governor Firmilian, in the reign of the emperor Galerius and his caesar Maximinus. At their head the tradition names the Egyptian bishops Peleus and Nilus, a presbyter Zeno, and the noblemen Patermuthius and Elias; of the company, one hundred were beheaded and the rest, with their leaders, were burned. They are commemorated together on September 17.
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Theodota of Nicaea
Theodota was a wealthy Christian woman of Cappadocia who suffered a long martyrdom ending at Nicaea around the year 230, in the reign of Alexander Severus. Denounced to the governor Symplicius, she endured raking with iron hooks, imprisonment, a red-hot furnace from which she emerged unharmed between two shining figures, torture on heated iron at Ancyra, and an attempt to saw her body apart, before she was finally beheaded at Nicaea and buried by its bishop Sophronius. She is commemorated on September 17.
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Socrates and Stephen
Socrates and Stephen are early martyrs of Britain known from the martyrologies alone. Their names stand against September 17 in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum tradition, in the early amplifications of Bede's martyrology, and in the Roman Martyrology ("In England, the holy martyrs Socrates and Stephen"); with Alban and with Julius and Aaron of Caerleon they are the only martyrs the ancient martyrologies place in Britain. No acts, history, or shrine survives. Later tradition, from Cressy in the seventeenth century, makes them disciples of St Amphibalus who suffered under Diocletian (whence the conventional date c. 304), and the nineteenth-century menologies place their passion in Monmouthshire or South Wales on the strength of reported church dedications that Baring-Gould could not verify. They are commemorated on September 17.
Readings
Epistle
Galatians 3.23-4.5
23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 1Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Gospel
Mark 6.30-45
30And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. 35And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: 36Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. 37He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? 38He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. 39And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 41And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42And they did all eat, and were filled. 43And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men. 45And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 1
Shown forth as most sacred branches of the noble Sophia, Faith, Hope and Love by grace made foolish the wisdom of the Greeks; and having contended and proved victorious, they were wreathed with a crown incorruptible by Christ, the Master of all.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a woman martyr)
Thy ewe-lamb Jesus crieth out with a great voice: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism; I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee. Receive me therefore as a spotless sacrifice, slain for Thee with love. By her intercessions, O Merciful One, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hieromartyr)
Sharer of the ways of the Apostles and successor of their thrones, thou didst find thy practice, O inspired of God, a ladder to the vision of God; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood. O hieromartyr Herakleides, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (Slavic use)
The Church of the firstborn keepeth festival, and rejoiceth with her, receiving the mother who rejoiceth over her children; for she, bearing the name of wisdom, bore three daughters equal in number to the theological virtues, and beholdeth them, with the wise virgins, wedded to the Bridegroom, God the Word. With her we also rejoice in spirit at their memory, saying: O champions of the Trinity, Faith, Love and Hope, establish us in faith, love and hope.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a woman martyr)
Thy ewe-lamb Jesus crieth out with a great voice: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism; I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee. Receive me therefore as a spotless sacrifice, slain for Thee with love. By her intercessions, O Merciful One, save our souls.