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 4.1-13

¹Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. ²For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. ³For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. ⁵And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. ⁶Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: ⁷Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. ⁸For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. ⁹There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. ¹⁰For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. ¹¹Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. ¹²For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. ¹³Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Gospel

Mark 12.18-27

¹⁸Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, ¹⁹Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. ²⁰Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. ²¹And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. ²²And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. ²³In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. ²⁴And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? ²⁵For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. ²⁶And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? ²⁷He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

Saints commemorated