Lives of the Saints
1. SAINTS JOACHIM AND ANNA
Saint Joachim was the son of Barpathir, of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David. Anna was the daughter of the priest Matthan, of the tribe of Levi, as was the high priest Aaron. This Matthan had three daughters: Mary, Zoia, and Anna. Mary was married in Bethlehem and bore Salome; Zoia was also married in Bethlehem and bore Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Forerunner; and Anna was married in Nazareth to Joachim, and in her old age bore the most holy Theotokos Mary. Fifty years Joachim and Anna lived in marriage and were childless. They lived a God-pleasing and quiet life, and of all their income they used only one third for themselves, distributed another to the poor, and offered the third to the Temple. And they were quite well-to-do. Once when in old age they went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice to God, the high priest Issachar reproached them, saying to Joachim: "You are not worthy to have your gifts received from your hands, for you are childless." So too others who had children pushed Joachim behind them as unworthy. This greatly saddened these two aged souls, and they returned home with great sorrow. Then both fell to prayer before God, that He would work a miracle for them as He had once done for Abraham and Sarah, and grant them a child to comfort them in their old age. God sent them His angel, who announced to them the birth of "a most blessed daughter, through whom all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed, and through whom shall come the salvation of the world." And immediately Anna conceived, and in the ninth month she gave birth to the Holy Virgin Mary. Saint Joachim lived eighty years on earth, and Anna seventy-nine, and they departed to the Lord.
2. COMMEMORATION OF THE THIRD ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
This Council assembled in the year 431 in Ephesus, during the time of Emperor Theodosius the Younger. Two hundred holy Fathers were at the Council. This Council condemned Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, for his heretical teaching about the most holy Virgin Mary and the birth of the Lord. Namely: Nestorius would not call the Holy Virgin the Theotokos but the Christotokos. The holy Fathers, having condemned the teaching of Nestorius, affirmed that the Holy Virgin is to be called the Theotokos. Besides this they confirmed the decisions of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils, especially the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, commanding that no one may either subtract anything from this Creed or add anything to it.
3. HOLY MARTYR SEVERIAN
A nobleman of Sebastia. During the martyrdom of the Forty Martyrs in Sebastia (see March 9), he visited those martyrs in prison and encouraged them and served them. After their glorious death he too was seized, beaten, and tortured for Christ, and finally hung on a tree with a heavy stone about his neck and another about his foot. Thanking God for all things, he gave up his spirit in the time of Emperor Licinius, in the year 320.
4. SAINT THEOPHANES THE CONFESSOR AND FASTER
After a God-pleasing life and suffering for Christ, he peacefully ended his days in the year 299.
5. SAINT NIKETAS, PLEASER OF GOD
He lived in Constantinople in the twelfth century. By his life he so pleased God that church doors opened of themselves before him and oil lamps lit themselves of their own accord. So powerful was his prayer. At the wish of a certain deacon Sozon and through the prayer of Niketas, a certain priest from the other world appeared, with whom Sozon had been in a quarrel and had remained unreconciled. First one row of priests appeared in white vestments and then another row in red vestments. Sozon recognized among them his adversary and was reconciled with him. This occurred at night in the Church of Blachernae.
“Then both fell to prayer before God, that He would work a miracle for them as He had once done for Abraham and Sarah, and grant them a child to comfort them in their old age.”
Hymn of Praise
Rejoice, O barren one,
Rejoice, O aged Anna!
Thou shalt conceive and bear
A child wondrous, chosen.
As once the aged Sarah,
As the mother of Samson,
As the mother of Samuel,
As the mother of John —
More glorious shalt thou be than all,
For thou shalt bear from thy loins
A wondrous maiden, unique,
A wondrous mother of the King Most High.
Rejoice, O Joachim,
Father of the mother unseen,
For this the whole Church of saints
Shall clothe the unseen one.
The law loses its power
When God wills and where God wills,
Who will argue with God,
Argue with God — who will?
Not by caprice but by love
God changes His laws,
Before love all laws
Stand as though they exist not.
When people hunger — the Lord
Makes the dry field fruitful,
For the spiritual hunger of the world
He makes the barren one fertile.
For the salvation of mankind the Lord
Arranges all that is best.
To the Creator whom He desires with glory
She cries out: Glory! Glory!
“The law loses its power when God wills and where God wills. Who will argue with God, argue with God — who will?”
Reflection
Alms should not be given with pride but with humility, considering the one to whom alms are given as better than oneself. Did not the Lord Himself say: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me" (Matthew 25:40)? Theophanes the Confessor, even as a boy, had a mind enlightened by the light of Christ. Once he was walking along the street and saw an unclothed child freezing in the open. He quickly took off his own clothes and dressed that child. And so he warmed it and restored it to life. He himself went home naked. His astonished parents asked him where his clothes were. To which Theophanes answered: "I clothed Christ." Therefore the grace of Christ was added to him, and he later became a great ascetic, sufferer for the faith, and wonderworker. If, therefore, we give alms in anyone else's name, or in our own name, we cannot avoid pride, which as soon as it appears in the heart destroys all the good deeds done. And when we give to a beggar as to a beggar and not as to Christ, we cannot avoid either pride or contempt. And what is the use of showing a man charity while being proud of oneself and despising the man? Virtue is not virtue when it is mixed with sin, just as milk is not milk when it is mixed with kerosene or vinegar.
“Virtue is not virtue when it is mixed with sin, just as milk is not milk when it is mixed with kerosene or vinegar.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the wisdom of Solomon (I Kings 3), namely:
1. How two women argued over one child, each claiming it was hers;
2. How Solomon commanded that the child be cut in two and one half given to each woman;
3. How the true mother cried out for the child, and so it was known that the child was hers.
“How Solomon commanded that the child be cut in two and one half given to each woman; and how the true mother cried out for the child.”
Homily
on God's witness about God
Thus spoke the Lord to a false and lying generation. These words He said to the elders of the Jews not as instruction but as rebuke. They did not believe one man when he spoke about himself, but demanded two witnesses. Do not even think, brethren, that what the Lord Jesus says about Himself is not true, but rather that the Jews did not consider it true. Hence, according to the interpretation of our holy Fathers, the words "My witness is not true" must be understood to mean that this witness was not true in the eyes of the Jews. And that every word which the Lord Jesus spoke about Himself is true, He Himself stated in another place, saying: "Though I bear record of Myself, yet My record is true" (John 8:14). Here the Lord teaches, there He rebukes; here He affirms how the matter is, there — how the matter appeared to the Jews. The Jews did not believe His witness about Himself, but demanded other witnesses. And He cited to them three enormous witnesses: first, the witness of His own works: "the works which the Father hath given Me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me" (5:36); second, the witness of His heavenly Father, who testified to Him as His Son at the Jordan and on Tabor: "the Father Himself, which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me" (5:37); and finally third, the witness of Holy Scripture: "Search the Scriptures... they are they which testify of Me" (5:39). What further witnesses would a man of any reason need? But in the elders of the Jews reason was darkened to such a degree that they could see nothing and understand nothing. When the Lord, the Lover of mankind, had done all that was needed to save even the elders of the Jews, and when they rejected all witnesses about Him, and thereby rejected their own salvation, then He said to them: "Though I bear record of Myself, yet My record is true." O my brethren, let us not be of stony heart like those blinded elders, and let us not reject our only salvation. Let us seek no other testimonies, but let us believe what the Lord Jesus Himself tells us about Himself. He said of Himself that He is the Truth. And by this Truth we are nourished and saved.
O Lord Jesus, Living Truth, Eternal Truth, depart not from us, but enlighten us and save us. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.”