Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Tuesday of the 17th week after Pentecost

163 days after Pascha · Tone 7 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy Hieromartyr Lucian, Presbyter of Greater Antioch

312

Saint Lucian was born about the year 240 at Samosata in Syria of Christian parents and was educated at Edessa in the school of Macarius, where he was instructed both in the divine Scriptures and in the secular learning of his age. After distributing his goods to the poor he supported himself by transcribing books, and was ordained presbyter at Antioch, where he founded a celebrated catechetical school whose alumni included many of the most learned teachers of the eastern church. He was renowned for his ascetic strictness and for his careful labour upon the text of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, producing a critical recension that was widely used throughout the east. During the persecution of the emperor Maximinus he was arrested at Antioch and conveyed to Nicomedia, where he was kept in prison for nine months and subjected to hunger, the rack and other torments. While in chains, on the feast of Theophany, he is said to have celebrated the divine mysteries upon his own breast, and on the day following, having received Holy Communion, he gave up his soul to God in the year 312. His relics were translated to Drepanum in Bithynia, which Constantine the Great renamed Helenopolis in honour of his mother and out of veneration for the martyr.

Saint Barses the Confessor, Bishop of Edessa

Saint Barses was bishop of Edessa in the fourth century and an unwavering champion of the Orthodox faith against the Arian heresy then patronised by the emperor Valens. He was a man full of apostolic grace, whose name was renowned throughout Phoenicia, Egypt and the Thebaid, and who by a single word could put sicknesses to flight, so that the suffering came to him from many lands and were healed. When Valens turned the imperial power against the defenders of the Council of Nicaea, Barses was driven from his see and sent into exile, first to the island of Aradus, then to Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and at last to a remote fortress called Pheno on the borders of the barbarian country, where he reposed in confession of the true faith about the year 378. So great was the veneration of the people that the simple bed upon which he had slept in Aradus was preserved as a relic, and many sick persons who lay upon it were restored to health by the prayers of the holy bishop.

Saint Sabinus the Wonderworker, Bishop of Catania

Saint Sabinus lived in Sicily during the eighth century, a period when the dioceses of the island had been removed from the jurisdiction of Rome by the emperor Leo the Isaurian and placed under the patriarch of Constantinople. Distinguished from his youth by piety and learning, he was raised to the episcopal throne of Catania on account of his many virtues. After ruling his flock for some time, finding the cares of office a burden upon his soul, he secretly withdrew into the wilderness, where he gave himself to fasting, prayer and unceasing struggle against the passions. The Lord granted him the gifts of healing and foreknowledge, so that he cured the sick, cast out unclean spirits and foretold things to come; and many young men, persuaded by his teaching, forsook the world and embraced the monastic life under his direction. After many years of ascetic labour he reposed in peace about the year 760, and the faithful of Sicily have honoured his memory ever since.

Venerable Euthymius the New of Thessalonica

Saint Euthymius, called the New or the Younger, was born about the year 824 at Opso in Galatia, of pious parents, and received the baptismal name Niketas. Married in his eighteenth year, he soon left the world after the birth of his daughter, withdrawing first to Mount Olympus in Bithynia where he was tonsured and trained in the ascetic life. Thence he passed to Mount Athos, then little inhabited, and dwelt for many years in caves and small cells, living for a long period upon the bare summit of the holy mountain in continual prayer and great bodily mortification. Ordained deacon in Thessalonica, he afterwards established a double monastery at Peristerai near that city upon the ruins of an ancient church of Saint Andrew, gathering disciples both male and female under his rule. Foreseeing his end, he returned to Athos, where he reposed about the year 889 on the island of Hiera, and his relics, brought back to Thessalonica, became a source of healing and a witness to the renewal of monastic life upon the holy mountain.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Ephesians — Ephesians 2.19-3.7

¹⁹So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, ¹⁹Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; ²⁰being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; ²⁰And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; ²¹in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; ²¹In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: ²²in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. ²²In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

¹For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles,—

¹For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, ²If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: ²if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward; ³How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, ³how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, ⁴whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ; ⁴Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) ⁵which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; ⁵Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; ⁶to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, ⁶That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: ⁷whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. ⁷Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 9.23-27

²³And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. ²³And he said unto all, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. ²⁴For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. ²⁴For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. ²⁵For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? ²⁵For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose or forfeit his own self? ²⁶For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in his own glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels. ²⁶For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. ²⁷But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God. ²⁷But I tell you of a truth, There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.