LIVES OF THE SAINTS
1. Saints Cosmas and Damian
They were unmercenaries and wonderworkers. Brothers both in flesh and in spirit, they were from somewhere in Asia, of a pagan father and a Christian mother. After the death of their father, their mother Theodotia devoted all her time and effort to raising and educating her sons as true Christians. And God helped her, so that her sons grew up as two sweet fruit trees and as two lights of the world. They were trained in the art of medicine, and they helped the sick without charge, not so much with medicines as with the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they were called unmercenary physicians, that is, physicians without fee, for they healed without charge and thus fulfilled Christ's commandment: "Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8). So careful were they in healing people without charge, that Cosmas became truly angry with his brother Damian because the latter accepted three eggs from a certain woman named Palladia, and Cosmas commanded that after his death he not be buried next to his brother Damian. In truth, Saint Damian did not accept those three eggs as payment for healing the sick Palladia, but because she adjured him by the Most Holy Trinity to accept those three eggs. Nevertheless, after their death, in the place called Ferreman, they were buried together according to divine revelation. These holy brothers were great wonderworkers both during their lives and after their death. While a certain peasant was sleeping, a snake slithered through his mouth into his stomach, and the wretched man was about to expire in the greatest torment, when in his final hour he invoked Saints Cosmas and Damian for help. And thus the Lord glorified forever through miracles those who glorified Him on earth through faith, purity, and mercy.
2. Saint Martyr Hermenegild the Prince
Hermengild was the son of Leovigild, king of the Goths, who held to the Arian heresy. But Hermenegild did not depart from Orthodoxy despite all the flattery and threats of his cruel heretical father. His father cast him into prison, and on Pascha morning sent a certain heretical bishop to commune him. But the saint of God refused to receive communion from the hands of a heretic, about which the bishop informed the king. The king became enraged and commanded that the executioners cut off Hermenegild's honorable head in the year 586. Later, Leovigild repented of killing his son, renounced the heresy, and returned to Orthodoxy.
3. Venerable Martyr James with his disciples James and Dionysius
James was born in the Diocese of Kastoria of parents Martin and Paraskeva. Working with sheep, James became wealthy, and thereby provoked the envy of his brother, who slandered him to the Turks, claiming that he had found some treasure in the earth. James fled to Constantinople, where he again became very wealthy. Once James was a guest at the house of a certain Turkish bey. The Turks were eating meat, but James was fasting. Then that bey said: "Great is your Christian Faith!" And he recounted how his wife had been mentally ill, and how he, after all the doctors and treatments, had taken her to the patriarch to read a prayer over her. As soon as the patriarch opened the book to read, a certain heavenly light shone throughout the church. After the prayer was finished, his wife was healed. Hearing the Turk praise the Christian Faith, James distributed all his possessions and went to the Holy Mountain, where he became a monk at the Monastery of Iveron. He struggled ascetically on the Holy Mountain, and suffered for the Faith at the hands of the Turks in Adrianople on November 1, 1520. His wonderworking relics, as well as those of his disciples, repose in the Monastery of Saint Anastasia in Galachiston near Thessalonica.
“And thus the Lord glorified forever through miracles those who glorified Him on earth through faith, purity, and mercy.”
HYMN OF PRAISE
The Church glorifies the wonderworking Physicians
Bright stars that shine with the Lord
Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian
Two wondrous Christian giants
Theodotia the mother alongside her sons
Who nurtured such marvels.
The glorious brothers fulfilled the law
And pleased Christ through mercy
They pleased Christ the merciful
The greatest unmercenary Physician.
They received the gift, became physicians
They received the gift but did not sell it.
God's gifts to the poor they gave
By Christ's name they healed them.
Time does not cover the saints with darkness
So it was—so it is even now
Nor does it cover the wonderworking Physicians
They shine today as they did before
And they help the sick and those in distress
With prayers mighty and freely given
Before Christ's heavenly throne.
Honor and glory to the wondrous Physicians!
“They received the gift, became physicians; they received the gift but did not sell it.”
REFLECTION
Saint Hilarion of Moglen waged a great struggle against the Bogomils. Once the leaders of the Bogomils gathered at Hilarion's place and began a dispute with him about the Faith. The Bogomils taught that God created the spiritual world and the devil the material. To this Hilarion replied that Holy Scripture says: "God is the King of all the earth" (Ps. 46:7), and also: "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" (Ps. 23:1). The Bogomils asserted that the Old Testament was from the devil. To this the saint replied: "If the Old Testament truly came from the devil, would Christ have said: 'Search the scriptures... and they testify of me' (John 5:39)? And would He have acknowledged as the greatest commandments those concerning love toward God and neighbor, which were once given to Moses?" The Bogomils further asserted that Christ's body was brought from heaven. To this Saint Hilarion said that if this were so, then Christ's body would not have felt hunger, nor thirst, nor weariness, nor suffering, nor would it have been subject to death. The Bogomils then expressed their indignation toward the sign of the Cross, which Orthodox Christians use. To this the saint replied: "And what will you do when the sign of the Son of Man, His Cross, appears in heaven, and when all the tribes of the earth lament, who did not believe in the Cross?" And he said further to them: "How can you say that all evil is from evil matter, yet you refuse to venerate that Wood by which the entire material world was sanctified?"
CONTEMPLATION
Contemplate the wondrous power of apostolic speech (Acts 16), namely:
1. How Paul and Silas spoke to the women gathered by the water in Philippi;
2. How the Lord opened the heart of the woman Lydia, so that she and her household were baptized.
HOMILY
on the calling of all Christians to be saints
To the saints who are in Ephesus (Eph. 1:1)
The Apostle calls the Christians in Ephesus saints. He does not call one or two of them saints, or a portion of them, but all. Is this not a wondrous miracle of God, that people not in the wilderness but in a city, and in an idolatrous and corrupt city at that, should be saints? And that married people should be saints, who bear children, who trade and do business! Such truly were the first Christians. Their devotion and faithfulness and zeal in the Faith, as well as the holiness and purity of their lives, completely justified the title of saints. If in recent times saints have become the exception, in those first times the unholy were the exception. Saints were the rule. Moreover, one should not be surprised that the Apostle calls all the baptized souls in Ephesus saints for yet another reason, namely that he has an even more exalted title for all Christians: sons, sons of God (Gal. 4:6). The right to be so called was given to us by Christ the Lord Himself, when He taught us to address God: "Our Father!"
O my brethren, do we not say to God every day: "Holy God"? Do we not call the angels holy? Do we not call the Mother of God holy? And the prophets, and the apostles, and the martyrs, and the righteous ones? Do we not call heaven holy, and the Heavenly Kingdom holy? Who then can enter into the holy kingdom except the holy? If we have hope for salvation, we have hope for holiness as well.
O Holy God, Who dwellest in holiness and reposest among the saints, and callest the holy to Thyself and cherishest them, help us also to be sanctified—in word and in thought and in deed. To Thy glory and to our salvation. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Who then can enter into the holy kingdom except the holy? If we have hope for salvation, we have hope for holiness as well.”