Ven. Melania the Younger of Rome

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Ven. Melania the Younger of Rome

Melania the Younger (c. 383 – 439) was a Roman noblewoman of one of the greatest senatorial fortunes of the late empire who, with her husband Pinian, renounced the whole of it for Christ. Married against her will at fourteen and bereaved of both her children, she persuaded Pinian to a life of continence, and together they freed thousands of slaves and sold estates scattered across Italy, Sicily, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and North Africa — a renunciation so vast it entangled the Senate and the imperial court. Fleeing the Gothic sack of Rome, they passed through Sicily and Campania to North Africa, where they knew Augustine of Hippo, and thence to the Holy Land. At Jerusalem Melania founded a convent of ninety virgins on the Mount of Olives, and later a men's monastery near the place of the Ascension. A staunch opponent of Nestorius, she won her pagan uncle Volusianus to baptism at Constantinople and was honoured by the empress Eudocia. She reposed at Jerusalem on December 31, 439. She is not to be confused with her grandmother, Melania the Elder (†c. 410, kept June 8), who likewise renounced a Roman fortune and likewise founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, and who returned to Rome in old age expressly to bring her granddaughter out of the world.
Saint of the day

Our Holy Mother Melania the Younger of Rome (439)
Saint Zoticus, Cherisher of the Poor and Servant of Lepers (4th c)
St Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid (ca. 1126)

Troparia & kontakia

Troparion — Tone 8

In thee, O Mother, was the image of God preserved with exactness; for thou didst take up the Cross and follow 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. Therefore doth thy spirit, O venerable Melania, rejoice together with the Angels.

Readings

Epistle

Hebrews 10.1-18

¹For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. ²For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. ³But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. ⁴For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. ⁵Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: ⁶In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. ⁷Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. ⁸Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; ⁹Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. ¹⁰By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹¹And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: ¹²But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; ¹³From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. ¹⁴For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. ¹⁵Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, ¹⁶This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; ¹⁷And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. ¹⁸Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

Gospel

Mark 11.22-26

²²And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. ²³For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. ²⁴Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. ²⁵And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. ²⁶But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

Saints commemorated