The Lives of the Saints
1. SAINT LEO, BISHOP OF CATANIA
Beneath the volcanic mountain Etna, in the city of Catania, Leo the holy one was a good shepherd and a merciful teacher of men. He had great care for the sick and the destitute. And his zeal for the Faith was as great as his compassion toward the afflicted. There appeared in that city a certain sorcerer named Heliodorus, who deceived the people with various illusions and greatly corrupted the youth. Once, during the Divine Service, he entered the church of God and began his conjurations. Saint Leo approached him, bound him with one end of his omophorion, and led him to the city marketplace. There he commanded that a great fire be kindled, and when the fire blazed up, he stood in the midst of the flames and drew Heliodorus into them as well. Heliodorus was burned entirely, while Leo remained alive and unharmed. All those who had been deluded by Heliodorus and who had looked upon him as some kind of deity were put to shame. And the merciful and zealous Leo became renowned throughout the entire empire as a great wonderworker who aids men through his luminous miracles. When he completed his course, his soul departed to the Lord, and from his holy relics there flowed a healing myrrh. He reposed in the eighth century.
2. HOLY PRIEST-MARTYR SADOC
He was a bishop in Persia after Saint Simeon. Once, Saint Simeon appeared to him in a dream and said: "Yesterday I, today you!" Sadoc interpreted these words to his flock as meaning: last year I suffered, this year it will be you. And indeed, that year King Sapor seized him together with much of the clergy and the people and brought them to trial. He first commanded them to bow down to fire and sun as to deities. Sadoc replied: "We are ready to die fervently for our God, but to the sun and fire we will not bow down." They were then tortured and condemned to be beheaded by the sword. Before the beheading, Sadoc raised a prayer to God: "Wash us, O Lord, in our blood from our sins!" And gloriously did Sadoc, together with his priests and faithful, deliver their bodies to death and their souls to the immortal God. They suffered in the year 342 or 344.
“Yesterday I, today you!”
Hymn of Praise
HOLY PRIEST-MARTYR SADOC
What is the sun? An eye that cannot see.
What is fire? A servant without mind.
King Sapor speaks to Sadoc thus:
"Bow down to the sun and to the flame,
To the gods who rule the world,
According to the teaching of wise Zoroaster."
Sadoc answers the king gently:
"Health to you, O king, and joy,
But where does the rational bow to the irrational?
Where does the word-endowed glorify the wordless?
The sun — beautiful as God's creation,
The flame — wondrous as a servant of men;
But can the creature replace the Creator?
Can the dead one take the place of the living?
Is the image better than the painter?
Is the plow more precious than the plowman?
One God there is, O king, in the heavens,
Rational, beautiful, good, and all-powerful,
Creator of the visible and invisible world,
Provider for every creature,
Bestower of all good gifts,
Ruler of all and Lover of mankind,
Revealed by the Only-begotten Son.
He saved us from the Persian delusion,
Taught us to stand above nature,
And to turn our face toward the Creator,
To raise our whole soul toward heaven,
There where our true homeland is,
The homeland of angels and of men"
Sadoc spoke — Sapor beheaded him.
“Can the creature replace the Creator? Can the dead one take the place of the living? Is the image better than the painter? Is the plow more precious than the plowman?”
Reflection
Water is more refined than earth; fire is more refined than water; air is more refined than fire; electricity is more refined than air. And yet air is a coarse element compared to the spiritual world; and electricity is a coarse element compared to the spiritual world.
Electricity is very refined, but the voice is more refined than electricity, thought is more refined than the voice, and the spirit is more refined than thought.
Air is refined, and carries the voice over great distances. Electricity is refined, and carries light over great distances. How much more, then, is your every deed, your every word, and your every thought carried to all the ends of the spiritual realm. Oh, how dreadful it is to commit a sinful deed, to speak a sinful word, and to conceive a senseless thought! To what immeasurable distances do the waves from that spread across the spiritual sea! But do not venture into the remote particulars of an unknown world. The essential thing is that you know and measure how your every deed, word, or thought inevitably makes an impression in four directions: upon God and the spiritual world, upon nature, upon men, and upon your own soul. If you train yourself in this awareness, you will attain a higher degree of saving caution.
“Your every deed, word, and thought inevitably makes an impression in four directions: upon God, upon nature, upon men, and upon your own soul.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus in conversation with Nicodemus (John 3), namely:
1. How Nicodemus, though a teacher in Israel, did not perfectly comprehend spiritual things;
2. How the Lord deliberately begins the conversation with the question of spiritual birth — the question most inaccessible to the mind of Nicodemus — in order thereby to bring Nicodemus to humility, and then to cultivate him further as good soil;
3. How Nicodemus at first approached Christ with embarrassment and shame (as many of the learned do even today), and afterward with ever-growing boldness.
Homily
on judgment and condemnation
He that believeth on Him (Christ) is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already (John 3:18)
He who believes in Christ the Lord is not condemned, for he himself judges and corrects his own steps according to the light that goes before him. As a man in deep darkness who adjusts his steps by the candle in his hand, so also he who believes in Christ — that is, he who has set out after Christ as after a light in the darkness of life.
But he who does not believe is already condemned. That is, he who has no guide on an unknown road, having barely taken his first step, has already lost the way and gone astray. He who does not believe in Christ is condemned to ignorance, to powerlessness, to wrath, to stumbling along crooked and entangled paths, to vice, to despair, and perhaps even to suicide. He is condemned in two worlds: in this world to a senseless, carnal, and deceptive existence, and in that world to eternal destruction. Oh, how dark is the path of the children of unbelief, and how deep the abyss between their every first and third step!
O most merciful Lord, truly we have no one and nothing to believe in save Thee. Thou art our Savior from darkness, sin, and death. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“He who believes in Christ is not condemned, for he himself judges and corrects his own steps according to the light that goes before him.”