Lives of the Saints
1. THE HOLY MARTYRS COSMAS AND DAMIAN
Unmercenary healers and wonderworkers. These two saints were brothers by birth, natives of Rome, baptized as children and raised in the Christian spirit. They had great grace from God to heal both men and animals of every sickness and affliction, usually by the laying on of hands. For their labors they sought no reward whatsoever, asking only that the sick believe in Christ the Lord. Having inherited a great estate, they mercifully distributed it to the poor and the destitute. At that time Emperor Carinus reigned in Rome. The persecutors of Christianity brought these holy brothers before him, bound in chains. After a lengthy interrogation, the emperor commanded them to renounce Christ and offer sacrifice to the idols. But Cosmas and Damian not only refused to obey the emperor but even counseled him to turn away from dead idols and acknowledge the one true God. "Our God is not created, but He is the Creator of all things, while your gods are the inventions of men and the work of craftsmen's hands. And were there no craftsmen to fashion gods for you, you would have no one to worship." After a miracle wrought upon the emperor himself — for they miraculously healed him of a grievous illness — the emperor declared his own faith in Christ and released the holy brothers in peace. And they continued to glorify Christ God and to heal the sick, and were themselves glorified by the people on every side. A certain physician, their former teacher, envied their fame and, under the pretext of gathering medicinal herbs, led them into the mountains and stoned them to death. They suffered honorably for the faith of Christ in the year 284. Their memory has endured in the Church on earth, and their souls have passed into the Kingdom of the Lord, to live eternally in glory and joy.
2. THE VENERABLE PETER THE PATRICIAN
This saint was a nobleman and commander of Constantinople in the time of Emperor Nikephoros. In a certain war with the Bulgarians, Emperor Nikephoros was slain, and Peter, together with fifty Greek commanders and princes, was captured and cast into prison. He was miraculously freed from prison by the Holy Apostle John the Theologian. He then despised all worldly glory, left his wife and son, and withdrew to Mount Olympus, where as a monk and disciple of the Venerable Joannicius the Great he labored in asceticism for thirty-four years. After the death of his wife and son, he settled in Constantinople, where he spent a further eight years in fasting and prayer and reposed in the Lord in the year 865, in the seventy-seventh year of his life.
3. THE HOLY MARTYR POTITUS
A thirteen-year-old boy, a native of Sardinia. Having endured many torments for Christ both from his own father and from the state persecutors of Christianity, Potitus was beheaded by the sword in the time of Emperor Antoninus (138–161), having first healed and baptized the emperor's daughter, Agnia.
“Our God is not created, but He is the Creator of all things, while your gods are the inventions of men and the work of craftsmen's hands.”
Hymn of Praise
The young Potitus his father asked:
"If thy faith is so truly right,
Wouldst thou for its sake give even thy life?"
Potitus answered: "The Savior hath promised
To gird every faithful one of His with power,
That he might easily suffer for His sake;
And so I too hope and firmly believe
That for my Christ I could endure suffering.
For my God, O Father, is great and glorious,
Wondrous and mighty, living and life-giving.
He helped young David in the battle
To smite the head of the terrible Goliath;
He shall be with me upon the path of suffering,
And I shall be able to endure a death both dark and fierce."
When Gilas the father heard this from his son,
As though he had drunk of divine wine,
He cried aloud: "Where have my years gone!
Behold, I have learned the truth from a child!"
And he received baptism, was numbered among the faithful,
While the martyr Potitus — was baptized also in blood.
“Behold, I have learned the truth from a child!”
Reflection
The bond between this world and the next, Christians manifest by both prayer and almsgiving for the departed. The Church in this world and the Church in the next are one Church, one body, one being, just as the root of a tree beneath the earth forms one organism with the trunk and branches above the earth. From this it is clear how we, constituting the Church on earth, can receive help from the saints and the righteous of the heavenly Church, and also how departed sinners in the other world can receive help from us on earth. Saint Athanasius says: "Just as it happens with wine sealed in a cask — when the vineyard in the field blossoms, the wine senses it and blossoms together with it — so it is also with the souls of sinners: they receive a certain relief from the bloodless sacrifice offered for them and from the almsgiving done for their repose." Saint Ephraim the Syrian cites this same example of the wine and the vineyard, and concludes: "And so, if even among plants there exists such a mutual sympathy, is not prayer and sacrifice all the more palpable to the departed?"
Contemplation
Contemplate the miraculous transformation of water into wine (John 2), namely:
1. How the Lord at the wedding in Cana transformed water into wine;
2. How my own soul, if it be wedded to the living Lord, transforms its earthly wateriness into a divine drink.
Homily
on How We Ought to Rejoice in Christ
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations (1 Peter 1:6)
So speaks the Apostle Peter, the saint whose life was filled with many temptations and frequent sorrows. So speaks the man who left his home and his household and followed Christ; who for the sake of Christ endured many torments: from hunger, from thirst, from the Jews, from the Romans, from false prophets, from cruel pagans — and who was at last crucified upon a cross, all for the sake of Christ the Lord. He who in this life was mercilessly scourged by great sorrows and great temptations counsels us to rejoice in Christ, that this joy might swallow up all our comparatively small sorrows and temptations. But why, brethren, should we rejoice in Christ? Because He revealed and showed us the reality of the greatest and most beautiful hopes and dreams of the human race: He revealed to us the one God — living, almighty, all-wise, and all-merciful — and gave us the right to be called His sons; He revealed to us and showed us immortal and eternal life, a life incomparably better than this life on earth; He revealed to us the spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of angels and the righteous, the kingdom of every good thing, of light, truth, and righteousness; He revealed to us and showed us the purpose of our existence here on earth and the meaning of all our labors and sufferings in this temporal life; He revealed to us an ocean of heavenly joy, in comparison with which all our sorrows and temptations are but drops of murky water that cannot cloud that ocean.
O brethren, what joy awaits us! O brethren, how small a price the Lord asks of us to purchase that joy in which the angels bathe and in which the righteous swim! Only that we fulfill a few of His brief commandments — that is the entire price!
O Lord Jesus, most wondrous Fount of joy, our pride and our glory, our praise and our thanksgiving, place Thy finger upon our lips and suffer not the murky drops of sorrow and temptation to poison us. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“O brethren, how small a price the Lord asks of us to purchase that joy in which the angels bathe and in which the righteous swim!”