Tuesday 9 May 2034
Prophet Isaiah; Trans. Rel. St Nicholas the Wonderworker
Tuesday of the 5th Sunday of Pascha
Paschaltide, day 31 · 30 days since Pascha
Saints commemorated
-
Saint of the day
Prophet Isaiah
Isaiah son of Amoz is the first and greatest of the four Greater Prophets, and the Church has never been content to call him only a prophet: from Jerome onward he is "the evangelist among the prophets," because he spoke of Christ not in figures only but almost in narrative. Called about the year 740 BC, in the year that King Uzziah died, by the overwhelming vision of the Lord enthroned in the Temple amid the six-winged Seraphim who cry Holy, holy, holy — the cry the Church has taken into the heart of the Eucharist — and cleansed for his office by a live coal carried from the altar in the tongs of a Seraph, he prophesied for some sixty years under four kings of Judah, counselled Ahaz and Hezekiah, foretold the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib and saw it fulfilled, and left the book that gives the Church the Emmanuel born of the Virgin, the Child upon whose shoulder is the government, the rod from the root of Jesse, the voice crying in the wilderness, and above all the Suffering Servant of chapter 53, led as a sheep to the slaughter and wounded for our transgressions. Tradition holds that he was sawn asunder with a wooden saw by order of the apostate king Manasseh, near the pool of Siloam, and the Church keeps his memory on May 9.
-
Saint of the day
Trans. Rel. St Nicholas the Wonderworker
Nicholas the Wonderworker (c. 270 – c. 343), Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, is among the most beloved saints of the whole Christian world, honoured East and West as the model of the good shepherd and the ready helper of all in need. A Lycian by birth, made bishop of the coastal city of Myra while still young, he is remembered as a confessor who suffered imprisonment in the last great persecution and, by tradition, as one of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, where his zeal against the heresy of Arius passed into legend. But it is his charity and his wonders that fixed his memory: the secret gift of gold that dowered three destitute daughters and saved them from ruin — the root of the whole Christian custom of gift-giving, and, by a long Dutch and American descent, of Santa Claus; the deliverance of three innocent men from the executioner's sword and of three unjustly condemned officers by a dream sent to the emperor; and the stilling of a storm at sea, for which sailors have claimed him as their patron ever since. His relics, laid in Myra, were carried in 1087 to Bari in Italy — where they still exude the fragrant "manna" of myrrh commemorated on his second feast, May 9 — and the churches raised in his honour are past counting; in Russian piety he stands, it is said, next after the Mother of God herself.
-
Holy Martyr Christopher (3rd c.)
Christopher, the great-martyr of Lycia, is one of the most widely venerated and most strangely depicted saints of the whole Christian world. The tradition makes him a man of enormous stature and frightening aspect, taken captive out of a barbarian people and serving in a Roman unit, who confessed Christ under Decius, was baptised — the Eastern accounts by Babylas of Antioch — and exchanged his old name Reprobus, "the rejected," for Christophoros, "Christ-bearer." His preaching converted the two hundred soldiers sent to arrest him and the two women, Callinica and Aquilina, sent to seduce him; he was tortured, shut in a red-hot bronze vessel, and at last beheaded, about the year 250. The Greek and Slavic tradition paints him with the head of a dog — an image the Christian East has kept, and the Christian West suppressed — while the Latin Middle Ages gave him instead the story of the giant ferryman who carried the Christ-child across the river and found the weight of the world upon his shoulders.
-
Callinica and Aquilina
Callinica and Aquilina were two women of Lycia, of ill fame, whom the persecutor sent in to the imprisoned Great-Martyr Christopher to break his resolve by seduction; instead they were converted by him, went out to confess Christ and to overthrow the idols of the temple, and were tortured and put to death about the year 250, under Decius. The Church keeps their memory with his on May 9, and the synaxaria never separate them from him: they are among the clearest instances of the martyr-passions' favourite pattern, in which the instrument chosen to destroy the confessor becomes the first fruit of his witness.
-
Joseph of Optina
Joseph of Optina (1837–1911), in the world Ivan Litovkin, was the closest disciple of Ambrose of Optina and his successor in the eldership. An orphan from a peasant family of the Kharkov province who came to Optina at twenty-three and never left it, he spent thirty years as Saint Ambrose's cell-attendant — the whole of the great elder's public ministry — sitting silently in the corner of the reception room, and by that obedience was formed into an elder of extraordinary discernment himself. After Ambrose's death in 1891 the burden of the Optina eldership and of the spiritual care of the Shamordino convent fell on him, and he bore it for twenty years, becoming superior of the skete in 1894. Notably reticent and few-worded, he was known for the unceasing Prayer of Jesus and for a stillness that visitors found more consoling than speech. He reposed on May 9, 1911, and was glorified with the company of the Optina elders by the Russian Orthodox Church in the year 2000.
-
Shio of Mgvime
Shio was one of the Thirteen Syrian Fathers who came into Georgia in the sixth century from the ascetic tradition of Antioch under the leadership of John of Zedazeni, and he became the greatest monastic founder among them. Sent out from Zedazeni to make his own place, he settled in the barren caves of Sarkineti in the gorge north-west of Mtskheta, where the tradition says he was fed by a dove; the conversion of a hunting nobleman, Evagre, and then the patronage of King Parsman, turned the hermitage into the great lavra of Shiomgvime, "the cave of Shio," which at its height numbered some two thousand monks and gave Georgian monasticism its first written rule. Shio ended his life in the extremity of ascetic self-effacement: his last fifteen years were spent walled into a pit or well, where he received the Holy Gifts lowered to him and where he died with the words, "O Lord, receive the soul of thy servant." He is commemorated on May 9.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Gorfor, patron of Llanover
- St. Sanctan, bishop of Kill-da-Les and Kill-na-Sanctan (6th C)
Readings
Epistle
Acts 12.25-13.12
25And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark. 1Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. 3And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. 4So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. 5And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister. 6And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: 7Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. 8But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 10And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. 12Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Gospel
John 8.51-59
51Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 52Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? 54Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. 57Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of women martyrs)
Thy lambs Callinica and Aquilina cry aloud to thee, O Jesus: thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with thee in thy baptism; I suffer for thy sake, that I may reign with thee; I die for thee, that I may live in thee. Receive us as spotless sacrifices offered unto thee in love, and by our intercessions, as thou art merciful, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Christopher, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from thee, our God; for possessing thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.
Kontakion — Tone 4
Thou didst bear Christ within thee, and wast rightly named the Christ-bearer, O glorious martyr; and having borne the fire of torments unconsumed, thou hast received the unfading crown. Wherefore we cry to thee: deliver us who honour thee from every sickness and from the malice of the demons.
Kontakion — Tone 4
Thy pure heart, made radiant by the Spirit, became the dwelling-place of most luminous prophecy; for thou dost behold things far off as though they were near. Wherefore we honour thee, O blessed prophet Isaiah, glory of the prophets.
Kontakion — Tone 3
In Myra, O holy one, thou wast shown to be a minister of sacred things; for having fulfilled the Gospel of Christ, O righteous Father, thou didst lay down thy life for thy people and didst save the innocent from death. Therefore wast thou sanctified, as a great initiate of the grace of God.
Troparion — Tone 2
As we celebrate the memory of thy prophet Isaiah, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, the image of God was preserved unimpaired, for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ; and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, which is a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Joseph, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4
A rule of faith and an image of gentleness, a teacher of temperance, hath the truth of things revealed thee to be unto thy flock; therefore hast thou gained by humility things exalted, and by poverty things rich. O Father and Hierarch Nicholas, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, the image of God was preserved unimpaired, for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ; and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, which is a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Shio, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.