Great Lent, day 23 · 26 days until Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
St James the Confessor of Catania
Jacob (James) the Confessor was a monk from his youth who, raised to the episcopate, endured imprisonment, hunger and exile for the veneration of the holy icons during the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm in the early ninth century. He did not die a martyr's death but is numbered among the confessors, having borne much affliction for the faith and lived out his days in ascetic labour. In the Greek synaxaria he is associated with the church of Catania in Sicily.
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Our Holy Father Serapion (366)
Serapion (c. 300 – after 362) was bishop of Thmuis in the Egyptian Delta, a monk of the Nitrian desert before his consecration, the intimate friend and staunch ally of Athanasius the Great in the struggle against Arianism, and one of the recipients of the letters of Antony the Great. He is remembered above all for the Euchologion (Sacramentary) that bears his name — the earliest substantially surviving collection of Egyptian liturgical prayers — and for his treatise Against the Manichaeans. He is numbered among the confessors of the Nicene faith.
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Serapion the Sindonite
Serapion the Sindonite is the Egyptian ascetic who owned nothing at all but a single coarse linen cloth — the sindōn that gave him his name — and who twice sold himself into slavery in order to convert his masters. Known from the Lausiac History of Palladius, he lived without roof or possessions "like the birds of the air," gave away even his cloth and his Gospel-book, walked from Egypt to Rome, and made of destitution an instrument of mission rather than a private discipline. Because his freedom from property extended to his own body and his own reputation, he stands at the head of a line that runs to the fools-for-Christ; and his few recorded sayings — above all his rebuke to a Roman recluse who thought herself dead to the world — are among the sharpest words in the desert literature.
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Thomas of Constantinople
Thomas (†610) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 607 until his death, holding the see through the troubled last years of the emperor Phocas. A deacon and the sakellarios (treasurer) of the Great Church before his elevation, he was esteemed for gentleness and for his care of the Church's order; the tradition recalls a portent of processional crosses clashing of their own accord, which he took, with the counsel of the holy John the Faster's disciple, as an omen of the divisions and calamities soon to fall upon the empire.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Enda of Inishmore, abbot of Aran (530)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unfailingly that which is according to the image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Serapion, thy spirit rejoices with the angels.
Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of an ascetic)
Having nothing upon the earth, thou didst possess Christ alone; and selling even thy own freedom, thou didst purchase souls for God. Wherefore, O Serapion, teach us to be poor, that we may be rich in Him.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable confessor)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to God's image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Jacob, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch Serapion guide our life in peace.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch Thomas guide our life in peace.
Readings
6th Hour
Isaiah 25.1-9
1O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. 2For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built. 3Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. 4For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. 5Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low. 6And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. 7And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. 8He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. 9And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Vespers
Genesis 9.8-17
8And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
Proverbs 12.8-22
8A man shall be commended according to his wisdom: but he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised. 9He that is despised, and hath a servant, is better than he that honoureth himself, and lacketh bread. 10A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. 11He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding. 12The wicked desireth the net of evil men: but the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit. 13The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips: but the just shall come out of trouble. 14A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth: and the recompence of a man’s hands shall be rendered unto him. 15The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. 16A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame. 17He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit. 18There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health. 19The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment. 20Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace is joy. 21There shall no evil happen to the just: but the wicked shall be filled with mischief. 22Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.