Christmastide, day 10
Forefeast of Theophany
Saints commemorated
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Prophet Malachi
Malachi (fifth century before Christ) is the last of the twelve Minor Prophets, and his short book stands last of all the prophets in the Christian ordering of the Old Testament — the seal of prophecy before the four centuries of silence that ended only with John the Forerunner. His name means "my messenger" or "my angel," and both the Greek tradition and the Lives of the Prophets remember him as a young man of such beauty and such gentleness of life that the people called him an angel; the hymns of his feast play throughout on the name. He prophesied in Judah after the return from Babylon, when the second Temple stood again but its worship had grown careless; against the corrupt priests and the faithless people he set the vision of a "pure offering" to be made among all nations, of the "messenger of the covenant" and the Forerunner who would come "in the spirit and power of Elijah," and of the "Sun of Righteousness" rising "with healing in his wings." He is kept on January 3, within the Forefeast of the Theophany.
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Holy Martyr Gordius of Caesarea (4th c.)
Gordius (†c. 320) was a soldier-martyr of Caesarea in Cappadocia, a centurion of the Roman army who, when the persecution of the Christians broke out, laid down his sword and withdrew into the wilderness to purify himself by fasting and prayer. Judging at last that the hour had come, he came down of his own accord into the crowded amphitheatre of his city on a day of pagan games, and, standing in the midst of the assembled people, cried aloud that he was a Christian and would not deny his Lord. After the questioning of the magistrate and the torments that followed, he was beheaded. His passion is remembered above all because Basil the Great, archbishop of the same Caesarea, preached a celebrated homily in his honour on his feast, before a congregation many of whom still remembered the martyr — one of the great pieces of early Christian martyr-preaching, and the chief source for his life. He is kept on January 3, within the Forefeast of the Theophany.
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Our Holy Mother Genevieve of Paris (ca. 502)
Genevieve (c. 422 – c. 512) is the great ascetic patroness of Paris, a consecrated virgin of the fifth-century Gallo-Roman Church who is venerated among the pre-Schism saints of the West received into Orthodox commemoration. Born at Nanterre and set apart for God in childhood by the passing bishop Germanus of Auxerre, she took the veil in her mid-teens and gave her long life to prayer, fasting, vigil, and unwearied charity. When Attila and the Huns bore down on Paris in 451, she persuaded the terrified citizens not to flee but to fast and pray, and the horde turned aside from the city; during a later blockade she led a convoy up the Seine to bring back grain and saved the people from famine. Revered by the Frankish kings Childeric and Clovis, devoted to the memory of the martyr Denis, and famed for prophecy and healing, she reposed at a great age about the year 512 and was buried on the hill that still bears her name. She is commemorated on January 3, within the Forefeast of the Theophany.
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Ephraim of Nea Makri
Ephraim is a fifteenth-century Greek monk of Mount Amomon above the modern Nea Makri in Attica, held to have been tortured to death by Turkish raiders on 5 May 1426. Nothing whatever was known of him until 1950, when the nun Makaria Desipri, excavating the ruins of the abandoned Monastery of the Annunciation on the hill, uncovered a burial she took — on the strength of a series of dreams and visions she reported — to be his, and from which the whole of his transmitted biography derives. A very large popular veneration grew up around the shrine within a generation; the Church of Greece entered him in its calendar in 1998 and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2011. His commemoration is therefore canonically established and liturgically kept, while the historical foundation of his life rests on private revelation and not on any document, and the Church's own recognition of him was cautious and late.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Hywyn, companion of St. Cadfan in Cornwall (6th C)
- St. Finlugh (Finlag) (6th C)
- St. Fintan (6th C)
- SS Fugatius and Damian (2nd C)
- St. Wenog
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 6
Let us all sing the praises of Gordius, the soldier unconquered in his contest and the crowned victor unvanquished in his torments — the great star that shone forth in very truth out of the East, the divine adornment of the Martyrs of Christ.
Kontakion — Tone 3
Filled full with the wisdom that is above all wisdom and divine, O most great Malachi, being by nature a prophet, thou didst show forth to all men Him who is from on high, the very Wisdom of God, come to dwell here below; wherefore we honour thee, keeping in faith thy sacred memory.
Sticheron
Thy head cut off by the sword, thou didst pass over manifestly from life to life, from the mortal to the immortal, from the corruptible to the incorruptible, not awaiting the death of nature but choosing of thine own will to die. O thy contests, victorious Gordius! by which, O Martyr, thou didst magnify Christ, the only compassionate One.
Sticheron
By thy life that imitated the angels thou wast shown forth on earth to be an angel, and didst fittingly gain for thyself the very name of Angel, O all-blessed Malachi, having harmoniously joined the beauty of thy soul to the beauty of thy body.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a venerable-martyr)
Trained in the discipline of the monks and made perfect in the contest of the martyrs, thou didst offer to Christ a twofold crown, O Ephraim: for having died to the world in the ascetic life, thou didst give thy body to torments for His name, and wast found faithful unto the end. Wherefore intercede with Him that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, was the image of God preserved with exactness; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to have care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Genevieve, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy Martyr Gordius, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of demons. By his supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 2
As we celebrate the memory of thy prophet Malachi, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.
Readings
Epistle
James 1.1-18
1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. 2My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. 9Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: 10But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. 11For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. 12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 13Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 16Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 18Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Gospel
Luke 15.1-10
1Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. 3And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. 7I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. 8Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? 9And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. 10Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.