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

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

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