Lives of the Saints
1. THE HOLY PROPHET AMOS
Born in the village of Tekoa near Bethlehem. Simple in origin and in life, Amos was a swineherd for the wealthy men of Jerusalem. But God, Who does not look at outward appearances but at the purity of the heart, and Who took both Moses and David from tending sheep and set them as leaders of the people, chose this Amos for His prophet. He denounced King Uzziah and his priests for idolatry and turned the people away from bowing to the golden calves at Bethel, teaching them to bow before the one and living God. When the chief priest Amaziah persecuted him, he prophesied that the Assyrians would conquer Israel, that they would slay the king and the sons of Amaziah, and that the soldiers of Assyria would defile Amaziah's wife before his eyes with fornication, because Amaziah had led the people into fornication with idols. All this afterward came to pass. The son of the priest struck the prophet on the forehead with a staff so mightily that he fell. Barely alive he was carried to his village of Tekoa, where he gave up his holy soul. He lived in the eighth century before Christ.
2. THE HOLY MARTYRS VITUS, MODESTUS, AND CRESCENTIA
Saint Vitus was born in Sicily of illustrious but unbelieving parents. Modestus was his teacher and Crescentia his nurse. Saint Vitus was baptized early and already in his twelfth year embarked upon a great ascetical struggle. Angels appeared to him and guided and strengthened him in his struggle, and he himself was radiant and beautiful as an angel of God. The hand of the judge who beat him withered, and Vitus healed his hand by prayer. His father was blinded when he saw in his son's room twelve holy angels "whose eyes were like stars and faces like lightning." But Vitus restored his sight by prayer. When his father wished to kill him, an angel appeared to him and led him, together with Modestus and Crescentia, to Lucania, to the bank of the River Siler. And there Saint Vitus showed many miracles upon the sick and the demented. At the summons of Emperor Diocletian he went to Rome where he cast out an evil spirit from the emperor's son, for which the emperor did not reward him but, on the contrary, fiercely tortured him, because he would not bow before the foolish idols. But the Lord delivered him from all tortures and by His invisible hand transported him again to Lucania, where he, Modestus, and Crescentia all departed to the Lord. The relics of Saint Vitus are in Prague.
3. THE VENERABLE MARTYR DULAS
He lived a holy life in a monastery in Egypt. A certain brother of his, out of envy, slandered him for sacrilege — the theft of church objects. They stripped the innocent Dulas of his monastic robe and handed him over to the governor for judgment. The governor ordered him flogged and wished to cut off his hands, in accordance with the law for such offenses, but at that point the brother repented and declared Dulas's innocence. Returned to the monastery after twenty years of exile and humiliation, he reposed in the Lord on the third day. His body miraculously vanished.
4. THE HOLY MARTYR LAZAR, PRINCE OF SERBIA
One of the Serbian noblemen who governed the Serbian kingdom after Emperor Dusan. After the death of Emperor Uros, Lazar was crowned by Patriarch Ephraim as Serbian emperor. He sent an embassy to Constantinople with the monk Isaiah to ask that the anathema be lifted from the Serbian people. He fought against the Turkish power on several occasions. Finally he clashed on the Field of Kosovo on June 15, 1389, with the Turkish Emperor Murad, where he was slain. His body was transferred and buried in his endowment of Ravanica near Cuprija, and later transferred from there to Ravanica in Srem, whence during the Second World War (1942) it was transferred to Belgrade and placed in the Cathedral Church, where it rests incorrupt to this day and offers consolation and healing to all who turn to him in prayer. He restored Hilandar and Gornjak; built Ravanica and Lazarica; was a benefactor of the Russian Monastery of Panteleimon as well as many other churches and monasteries. (His holy relics now rest in the Monastery of Ravanica.)
5. SAINT EPHRAIM, PATRIARCH OF SERBIA
As the son of a priest, from childhood he strove for the spiritual and ascetical life. He fled to the Holy Mountain when his parents wished to marry him. Later he returned and struggled ascetically in the Ibar Gorge and at Decani. When disorder and rivalry arose in the state, and unfortunately in the Church as well, the Council elected Ephraim as patriarch in place of the reposed Sava in the year 1375. When the election was announced to him, he wept bitterly, but he could not refuse. He crowned Prince Lazar as emperor in 1382, then resigned the throne and gave it to Spyridon, and withdrew again into the desert; but after the death of Spyridon in 1388, Emperor Lazar entreated him and he again assumed his duties. He governed the Serbian Church during the difficult time of the Kosovo catastrophe and afterward until the year 1400, when he departed this life in the eighty-eighth year of his life and went to the Lord Whom he had loved. His relics rest in the Monastery at Pec.
6. THE BLESSED AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO
Thanks to the counsels, tears, and prayers of his mother Monica, he was converted from paganism to Christianity. A great teacher of the Church and an influential writer, with certain unapproved extremes in his teaching. For thirty-five years he glorified the Lord as Bishop of Hippo, and in all lived on earth seventy-six years (354-430).
Hymn of Praise
Most beautiful Vitus, full of heavenly honey,
Before the unbelievers he confessed Christ
And mocked the dead idols
And their dark idol-priests.
He glorified Christ as the Power of God,
He taught justice to father and judge,
But both arrayed themselves against him,
And prepared torments for little Vitus.
But God guards His martyrs
And glorifies those who glorify Him.
Vitus had to testify of the Lord Christ
Even to the emperor's face,
And to suffer openly in Rome,
That his name might be more glorified.
Little Vitus the angels upheld,
Little Vitus the angels guided,
And his soul the angels took,
Bore it to Paradise, and presented it to God.
Reflection
It is not easy always to conquer within oneself the spirit of vanity and boasting: only great spiritual men have succeeded in this, with the great grace of God in the first place, with unceasing watchfulness over their souls, and with very fine spiritual perceptions and distinctions. Abba Nisterus was once walking along a path with a brother. Suddenly they noticed a serpent on the path. The brother quickly fled to the side, and after him fled even the great Nisterus. "Art thou also afraid, Father?" the monk asked Nisterus. The elder answered: "No, my son, I am not afraid, but I had to flee — otherwise I would not have fled from the spirit of vanity. That is: if I had remained in place, thou wouldst have admired me, and I would have become vain from it!"
“No, I am not afraid, but I had to flee — otherwise I would not have fled from the spirit of vanity.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the miraculous healing of many who were sick (Matt. 14:36), namely:
1. How many who were sick only touched the hem of the Lord's garment and were healed,
2. How my soul too can be healed if I touch His Body and Blood, as the bodily garment of His Divinity.
Homily
on the Poor Man and His Creator
Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker (Prov. 17:5)
If thou art rich, with what art thou rich if not with the property of God? The things that make up thy wealth, whose are they if not God's? If, then, thou art proud of what thou hast, thou art proud of another's property, thou art proud of God's loan. Why then dost thou mock the poor man, who has less of another's property in his hands? Why dost thou mock him if he has borrowed less from God than thou? If he has taken less, he owes less; and thou who hast taken more, owest more. Not only shouldst thou not mock the poor man, but thou shouldst admire him. Behold, he wages battle in the arena of this world with far fewer means than thou. Both of you are soldiers, only thou fightest as a soldier abundantly supplied with all necessities, while he fights naked and hungry. If both of you succumb and surrender to the enemy, he will be judged more lightly than thou; but if both of you are victorious, he will receive a greater reward than thou, and his victory will be more celebrated than thine.
He who mocks a naked and hungry soldier mocks his king. He who mocks the poor man reproaches his Creator. If thou knowest that the Creator of the poor man and thy Creator are one and the same, thou wilt not mock him. If thou knowest that the poor man stands in the same battle line as thou, thou wilt clothe him, feed him, and draw him near to thyself.
O Lord Almighty, immeasurable is Thy wisdom in the economy of creation. Illumine us with Thy Holy Spirit, that we may marvel at that economy and with reverence and love look upon all Thy creatures, beholding them through Thee. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“He is a man — do not rejoice at his fall. He is thy brother — let not thy heart be glad when he perishes.”