The Lives of the Saints
1. THE HOLY PROPHET JEREMIAH
Born six hundred years before Christ in the village of Anathoth, not far from Jerusalem. He began to prophesy in his fifteenth year, in the time of King Josiah. He prophesied repentance to the king and the nobles and the false prophets and the priests; and in the time of that King Josiah he barely saved his life from the murderous hand of the embittered nobles. To King Jehoiakim he prophesied that his burial would be like the burial of a donkey — that is, he would be cast out dead beyond Jerusalem, and his body would be dragged along the ground for a long time without burial. Because of this, Jeremiah was thrown into prison. Being unable to write in prison, Jeremiah summoned Baruch, who stood by the small window of the prison while Jeremiah dictated to him. When this prophecy was read to the king, the angry king seized the document and cast it into the fire. The Providence of God saved Jeremiah from prison, and upon Jehoiakim the prophetic word was fulfilled. To King Jeconiah he prophesied that he would be led away to Babylon with his entire family and would die there — all of which soon came to pass. Under King Zedekiah, Jeremiah placed a yoke upon his own neck and walked through Jerusalem, prophesying the fall of Jerusalem and slavery under the yoke of the Babylonians. He wrote to the Jewish captives in Babylon not to hope for a return to Jerusalem, for they would remain in Babylon for seventy years — which indeed came to pass. In the Valley of Topheth, below Jerusalem, where the Jews offered their children as sacrifices to idols, Jeremiah took a whole vessel in his hands and shattered it before the people, prophesying the imminent destruction of the Kingdom of Judah. Soon the Babylonians seized Jerusalem, slew King Zedekiah, plundered and destroyed the city, and cut down a vast number of Jews in the Valley of Topheth, at the very place where children had been slaughtered as sacrifices to idols, and where the prophet had shattered this vessel. Jeremiah, together with the Levites, took the Ark from the Temple and carried it to Mount Nebo, where Moses had died, and there hid it in a cave. The fire from the Temple he hid in a deep well. He was compelled by certain Jews to go with them to Egypt, where he lived for four years, and was then stoned to death by his own countrymen. To the Egyptians he had prophesied the destruction of their idols and the coming to Egypt of the Virgin with the Child. There is a tradition that Alexander the Great himself visited the tomb of the Prophet Jeremiah. By the command of Alexander, the body of Jeremiah was transferred and buried in Alexandria.
2. THE VENERABLE MARTYR ACACIUS THE COBBLER
From the village of Neochori near Thessalonica. Having been beaten severely by his master in Serres, he converted to Islam. Afterward, as a penitent and monk, he lived at Hilandar. His poor but Christ-loving mother counseled him: "Just as you voluntarily denied the Lord, so now you must voluntarily and courageously accept martyrdom for the sweet Jesus." The son obeyed his mother, and with the blessing of the Holy Mountain Fathers he went to Constantinople, where he was beheaded by the Turks on May 1, 1816. His head is preserved in the Monastery of Panteleimon.
3. THE VENERABLE PAPHNUTIUS OF BOROVSK
The son of a Tatar nobleman who later accepted the Christian faith. In his twentieth year Paphnutius was tonsured a monk and lived in the monastery until his ninety-fourth year, when he reposed in the Lord. He was a virgin and an ascetic, and because of this a great wonderworker and clairvoyant. He reposed in the year 1478.
Hymn of Praise
Jeremiah, virgin and prophet,
God's will he proclaims unto men
When in sin the people had rotted
And trampled God's laws underfoot.
The prophet cries out, weeps, and threatens,
His words are like a living flame,
—
They burn the sinful, shine for the righteous;
His tears are like the tears of a mother
Over her own offspring dying.
A punishment, the prophet foresaw it,
A punishment a hundredfold deserved.
God's mercy into justice is turning.
The prophet cries out, weeps, and threatens,
He calls the sinful people to repentance.
The people listen to what the rulers say,
And the rulers mock the prophet,
And declare his words to be lies!
But the prophet will not let himself grow weary:
He seals his words with suffering;
Wicked men slew the prophet,
And thereby made him famous forever.
Every word of the prophet was fulfilled —
The kingdom fell, the prophet was glorified.
“The prophet cries out, weeps, and threatens, His words are like a living flame.”
Reflection
The Venerable Paphnutius of Borovsk used to tell his disciples that a man's soul and his hidden deeds can be known by the look in his eyes. To the disciples this seemed unbelievable, until this man of God confirmed it in practice, and on more than one occasion. Perceiving the destinies of others, Paphnutius also perceived his own. A week in advance, while still in good health, he prophesied that on the coming Thursday he would depart from this world. And when that Thursday dawned, he joyfully exclaimed: "Behold the day of the Lord, rejoice, O people; behold, the awaited day has come!" — Thus does a man who has spent his entire life thinking about his departure from this world and his meeting with God greet death.
Contemplation
Contemplate the Ascension of the Lord Jesus, namely:
1. How two angels appeared to the disciples while they were still gazing after the ascended Lord,
2. How the angels declared that the Lord would come again in the same manner as the disciples had seen Him depart into heaven.
Homily
On the Power of the Word of the Lord
**Is not My word like fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? ** (Jer. 23:29)
Indeed, O Lord, Thy word is truly like fire that warms the righteous and burns the unrighteous. And Thy word is truly like a hammer that softens the stony hardness of the penitent's heart, and crushes to dust the hearts of unrepentant sinners.
Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us? (Luke 24:32) the Apostles asked one another after their conversation with the risen Lord. When the heart in a man is upright, it burns from the word of the Lord, and melts with sweetness, and expands with love. But when the heart in a man is crooked and petrified by sin, then it is scorched by the word of the Lord and grows even harder. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.
In vain do sinners fortify themselves in their fortresses of stone, in their fortresses of iron, in their fortresses of silver and gold, casting off the armor of God's righteousness. Like a mighty and irresistible hammer is the word of the Lord, when He pronounces judgment upon those stone fortifications in which sinners entrench themselves.
In vain does the unbeliever fortify his house with hard stone, and the statesman his state with the petrified wisdom of this world, not trusting in the living God. The word of the Lord falls like a hammer upon all that is built apart from God, or against God — like a mighty and irresistible hammer.
O brethren, let us not trust in our own constructions of stone — neither of marble nor of gold nor of silver, nor of the godless stone of our own thoughts. All of this is weaker before the power of God than dust before the power of the wind.
O Almighty Lord, help us to receive Thy word and to build upon it our entire life, both in this world and in the world to come. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“O brethren, let us not trust in our own constructions of stone — neither of marble nor of gold nor of silver, nor of the godless stone of our own thoughts.”