Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE XENOPHON AND MARY, AND THEIR SONS JOHN AND ARCADIUS
Distinguished and wealthy citizens of Constantinople, Xenophon and Mary lived a God-pleasing life and devoted all their attention to the Christian upbringing of their sons. When their sons had grown, they sent them for studies to Berytus (Beirut); but it happened that a storm sank the ship. By God's providence, however, John and Arcadius were somehow saved and cast by the waves onto the shore, but onto two different places, so that each thought the other had drowned. From grief for one another they both became monks in two different monasteries. After two years their grieving parents came to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to the holy places. There, with the help of the clairvoyance of a certain spiritual father, brother met with brother first, and then the parents with their children. Out of gratitude toward God, Xenophon and Mary distributed all their property to the poor, and they both became monastics. The touching history of these four holy souls clearly shows how the Lord wondrously guides the destiny of those who believe in Him; how He permits suffering and sorrow to come upon them, that He might afterward, having strengthened them even more in faith, lead them into greater joy. They lived and reposed in the Lord in the fifth century.
2. VENERABLE SIMEON THE ELDER
A friend and companion of Saint Palladius. From early youth until death he practiced asceticism in a cave. He founded two monasteries and reposed in the Lord in the year 390. He is called the Elder, or the Old, to distinguish him from Simeon the Stylite, who practiced asceticism somewhat later.
3. SAINT DAVID, KING OF GEORGIA (1089-1130)
He renewed and strengthened Georgia as a state. As a great zealot of the Christian faith he built many new churches throughout Georgia and repaired the old ones. He is considered the regenerator of the Orthodox faith in Georgia.
Hymn of Praise
This world is foreign, and we are exiles,
With royal dreams, captives in a dungeon,
Lost children seeking the Father with sorrow,
Strangers call them and soothe them with delights.
How will they soothe heroic spirits
With strangers whose every delight is deadly!
The stranger breathes death and smells of death,
What it writes in the morning, it erases in the evening.
But the exiled prince sighs for the kingdom,
For the immortal kingdom, for the air above,
Where his Father reigns, where nothing is foreign,
Where death is unknown nor the smell of decay.
O wondrous world, O terrible cage!
He who is bound to Christ, breaks your bonds,
And becomes free from everyone and everything,
He neither goes with you, nor flees from you,
But prepares diligently, to depart from you
Into the Father's embrace, into the kingdom of freedom.
“He who is bound to Christ, breaks your bonds, and becomes free from everyone and everything.”
Reflection
The greatest treasure of a state is the holy and good people who live in it. Compared with this treasure every other treasure is as nothing. Pious Christian emperors considered holy people in their state the greatest blessing of God. Saint Emperor Constantine the Great said: "I thank the Lord Jesus Christ that in my days there exist three divine luminaries: blessed Abba Anthony, Abba Elenius and Abba Euchin." Before the Battle of Kulikovo, fateful for Russia, pious Prince Dimitri Donskoy, with his captains and commanders, went to the Radonezh forest to seek Venerable Sergius and entreat him for his prayers to God. Although the prince had prepared an army for a war of liberation against the Tatars, somehow he placed greater hope in the prayer of one holy man than in a numerous army and weapons.
“He placed greater hope in the prayer of one holy man than in a numerous army and weapons.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus as prophet, namely:
1. As a prophet who clearly foretold to individuals (such as: Peter, John, Judas and the other apostles) what would happen to them in the future;
2. As a prophet who clearly foretold the future of Jerusalem and certain other cities; of the Jewish people and of the Church of God;
3. As a prophet who clearly foretold the end of the world and His second coming.
Homily
on the perplexity of those darkened by sin
**Who is this that forgiveth sins also? ** (Luke 7:49)
Thus asked the unrepentant sinners: who is this? This is He who feels most acutely the sting of human sins; upon whom all human sins fall like blows. This is He who once in Paradise beheld man sinless; He who created man sinless, and who is Himself sinless from eternity and unto eternity.
Only he who can also take revenge can forgive. A powerful man avenges himself by revenge, a powerless one by hatred. If you can return a blow dealt to you and do not return it, this does not yet mean that you have forgiven, until you uproot the root of anger from your heart. Great is the Lord alone, who can both take revenge and forgive: great in righteousness, for He will take revenge on the unrepentant sinner; great in mercy, for He will forgive the repentant.
O if men knew the power of the forgiveness of sins! Behold, when sins are forgiven the blind man, he sees; the deaf man—and he hears; the hunchback—and he is straightened; the one with a flow of blood—and he is healed; the mad man—and he comes to his senses; the one possessed by demons—and he is freed; the harlot—and she is purified; the dead man—and he comes to life!
But, O how terrible is the chain of sin! What heavy chains are many sins! These chains cannot be torn by sinful hands. But when the hand of the most pure Lord touches them, they untie and disintegrate of themselves. When the voice of the Pure One reaches them, they disintegrate. Even from the gaze of the Pure One they disintegrate. Yes, even from the thought of the Pure One they disintegrate—those dreadful chains of sin.
Who is this that forgiveth sins also? This is, O sinners, the most pure Lord, and because of His purity all-powerful.
O most pure and all-powerful Lord, free us also from the fetters of sin. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Only he who can also take revenge can forgive.”