6-27-10:
St. Joanna St. Sampson the Hospitable
I Kings 19:16-21:
"I have left seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." God has not taken pleasure in mere numbers. God counts those who are in a state of salvation. Nothing is as magnificent in God's sight as pure doctrine, and a soul perfect in the truth. (St. Gregory the Theologian)
Just as God did not inflict His anger on account of the seven thousand men who had not bowed to Baal, even so now He does not yet inflict judgment, knowing that daily some are becoming disciples in the name of Christ, and quitting the path of error. These are receiving gifts, each as he is worthy, illumined through the name of Christ. (St. Justin, Martyr)
Galatians 5:13-18:
Do not believe that the doing away of the Law is a license to sin. Liberty is nowhere but where the Lord is dwelling. (Abba Theonas)
As soon as our first parents had transgressed the commandment, divine grace forsook them, and they were confounded at their own wickedness. Then began the flesh to lust against the Spirit, in which strife we are born, deriving from the first transgression a seed of death, and bearing in our members, and in our vitiated nature, the contest of the flesh. (St. Augustine)
Luke 9:51-62:
The disciples were to be the teachers of the world, going through towns and villages, to preach the doctrine of the Gospel, meeting sometimes with men who would not receive the sacred doctrine, allowing not that Jesus sojourned on earth with them. Our Lord therefore taught them that in announcing the divine doctrine they ought to be filled with patience and meekness, without bitterness, wrath or fierce enmity against those who had done any wrong to them. (St. Cyril of Alexandria)
He, who divides his pursuits, lessens his affections. He who divides his care, delays his advances. (St. Ambrose)
We have to prefer spiritual things to even our greatest necessities; for the devil watchfully presses close upon us, wishing to find any opening, and if he causes a slight negligence, he ends in producing a great weakness. (St. John Chrysostom)
6-28-10:
Amos 2:6-16
Once you have realized that the Amorite within you is "as strong as an oak", you should pray fervently to the Lord to dry up "his fruit from above" – that is, your sinful actions, and "his roots from beneath" – that is, your impure thoughts. Ask the Lord in this way to "destroy the Amorite from before your face". (St. John of Karpathos)
How can someone clothed in worldly preoccupations race against the demons stripped of every care? "The naked shall run swiftly in that day" – the naked, not the one who is hindered in running by thoughts about money and material possessions. (St. Neilos the Ascetic)
Matthew 8:18-22:
The one called Him Master; the other confesses Him as his Lord. The one from filial piety asks permission to go and bury his father; the other offers to follow, not seeking a master, but by means of his master seeking gain for himself. (St. Jerome)
Nothing ought to be more binding on us than the business of heaven. (St. John Chrysostom)
6-29-10:
Acts 12:1-11:
The Apostle Peter, when Herod sought him and took him, was put into prison; for the servant of God did not flee, but stood firm without a thought of fear. The Church prayed for him, but the Apostle slept in prison, a proof that he was not in fear. An angel was sent to rouse him as he slept, by whom Peter was led forth out of prison and escaped death for a time. (St. Ambrose)
It was fitting that such pastors and teachers as Peter and Paul be appointed for humankind. They would be mild, mighty and yet wise. They would be mild that they might receive me gently and mercifully. They would be mighty that they might strongly protect me. They would be wise that they might lead me to the way, and along the way, leading to the city. (St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
II Timothy 4:6-18:
St. Paul proclaims with confidence, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith" (II Tim. 4:7). And because he knows he has run unweariedly "after the odor of ointment" (S. of S. 1:3) of Christ with ready devotion of heart, and has won the battle of spiritual combat by the chastisement of the flesh, he boldly concludes and says, "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me in that day." And that he might open up to us also a like hope of reward, if we desire to imitate him in the struggle, he added: "But not to me only, but to all also who love His coming" (II Tim. 4:8); declaring that we shall be sharers of his crown in the day of judgment, if we love the coming of Christ – not that one only which will be manifest to men even against their will; but also this one which daily comes to pass in holy souls – and if we gain the victory in the fight by chastising the body. (St. John Cassian)
St. Paul shrank not from the time when his death came, but gloried in it, saying, "I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand". (St. Athanasius)
Matthew 16:13-19:
When the Lord enquires concerning the opinion of the multitudes, all the disciples answer; but when all the disciples are asked, Peter as the mouth and head of the Apostles answers for all. (St. John Chrysostom)
This confession of Peter met a worthy reward, for he had seen the Son of God in the man. (St. Hilary of Poitiers)
6-30-10:
Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles
Amos 5:14-24:
"Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? The day of the Lord will be darkness for you, not light." It will be a day of darkness for those who are worthy of darkness. (St. Basil the Great)
In judgment God brings both salvation and wrath, darkness and light. This is what Amos meant when he addressed the apostate people of his age, who were expecting that the coming Day of the Lord would protect them from their enemies. The problem was that the people of God had become the enemies of God. (David Chilton)
Matthew 8:28-34:
The demons who hindered all others from passing that way, found one now standing in their way; for they were tortured in an unseen manner, suffering intolerable things from the mere presence of Christ. (St. John Chrysostom)
The Devil knows that of himself he has no power to do any thing, because it is not of himself that he exists as a spirit. (St. Gregory the Great)
7-1-10:
Sts. Cosmas and Damien the Wonderworking Unmercenaries
Amos 7:10-17:
None can see or enter into the Kingdom, except he be born again of the Spirit, and be cleansed from the first birth, which is a mystery of the night, by a remolding of the day and of the Light, by which, one by one, men are created anew. This most wise and loving Spirit, if He possesses a goatherd and cultivator of sycamores, He makes him a prophet. (St. Gregory the Theologian)
What a skilled worker the Spirit is. There is no question of delay in learning what the Spirit teaches us. No sooner does the Spirit touch our minds in regard to anything than we are taught. The Spirit's very touch is teaching. The Spirit changes the human heart in a moment, filling it with light. Suddenly we are no longer what we were. Suddenly we are something we never used to be. (St. Gregory the Great)
Matthew 9:1-8:
The Scribes regarding Him as a man, and not understanding the words of God, charged Him with blasphemy. But He seeing their thoughts then showed Himself to be God, Who alone knows the heart; and thus, as it were, said, "By the same power and prerogative by which I see your thoughts, I can forgive men their sins". (St. Jerome)
The paralytic is called "Son", because he is God's work. The sins of his soul which the Law could not remit are remitted him, for faith only justifies. He shows the power of the resurrection, by taking up his bed, teaching that all sickness shall then be no more found in the body. (St. Hilary of Poitiers)
7-2-10:
St. John the Wonderworker of San Francisco
Amos 8:4-12:
The sun is said to "go down" at midday on sinners and false prophets, and those who are angry, when the prophet says, "Their sun is gone down at noon." The mind, or reason, which is fairly called the sun because it looks over all the thoughts and discernings of the heart, should not be put out by the sin of anger lest when it "goes down" the shadows of disturbance, together with their author the devil, fill all the feelings of our hearts, and, overwhelmed by the shadows of wrath, as in a murky night, we know not what we ought to do. (St. John Cassian)
The Jews, deprived of all the sanctification imparted by the mysteries revealed to them, turned their light into darkness and their "feasts into mourning". Let us prostrate our bodies and our souls and worship God's grace, which has been poured out on all nations, beseeching the merciful Father and the rich Redeemer from day to day to give us His aid and enable us to escape all the dangers of this life. (St. Leo the Great)
Matthew 9:9-13:
The signs and wonders which had preceded this, the Apostles, no doubt, had seen before they believed. The brightness of effulgence of the hidden Godhead which beamed from his human countenance attracted them; for if the loadstone can attract iron, how much more can the Lord of all creation draw to Himself whom He will! (St. Jerome)
None should suppose that sinners are loved by Christ because they are sinners. This comparison of the sick shows what God means by calling sinners, as a physician does the sick to be saved from their iniquity as from a sickness; which is done by repentance. (St. Augustine)
7-3-10:
St. Anatolios, Patriarch of Constantinople St. Hyacinth, Martyr
Amos 9:11-15:
Amos prophesies concerning the Resurrection when he says: "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and build up the breaches thereof. I will raise up his ruins, and will build them up again as in the days of old: that the residue of men may inquire for Me, and all the nations upon whom My name is invoked." (St. Augustine)
Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ's own life, for in baptism he receives the power to so progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such a progression. To Christ's conception corresponds the foretaste of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to His nativity the actual experience of joyousness, to His baptism the cleansing force of the fire of the Spirit, to His transfiguration the contemplation of divine light, to His crucifixion the dying to all things, to His burial the indwelling of divine love in the heart, to His resurrection the soul's life-quickening resurrection, and to His ascension divine ecstasy and the transport of the intellect into God. (St. Gregory of Sinai)
Matthew 9:14-17:
Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church the Bride. Of this spiritual union the Apostles were born. They cannot mourn so long as they see the Bridegroom in the chamber with the Bride. But when the nuptials are past and the time of passion and resurrection is come, then shall the children of the Bridegroom fast. (St. Jerome)
Christ shows that neither our souls nor bodies, being so weakened by inveteracy of sin, are capable of the sacraments of the new grace without His saving presence. (St. Hilary of Poitiers)
via Brother Alexandros, Aquilifer
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Released by Primus Pilus
Legio Christi-Ecclesia Militans
"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" [St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 14:19]
* ORDO CENTURIONUM * IN HOC SIGNO VINCES * TIME DEUM ET OPERARE IUSTITIAM
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