Wednesday, June 30 / 17 (Church Calendar)

Living the evangelical life of Orthodox monasticism in witness to the salvific truth of the Gospels of Our Lord, God, and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory to Him forever!

Saints of the Day

June 17 / 30. Martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael of Persia. Hieromartyr Philoneides, Bishop of Kurion in Cyprus. Saints Joseph and Pior, disciples of St. Anthony the Great. The Alfanov brothers (see May 4). St. Ananias the Iconographer of Novgorod. (Greek Calendar: lM Isaurus, and with him Basil, Innocent, Felix, Hermes and Peregrinus of Athens.)

Photo of the Day

A view of our monastery from the southeast of our land.

Quote of the Day

“Why do we try to make other people’s property our own, weighing ourselves down with material fetters, and paying no attention to the prophet’s imprecation: ‘Woe to him who gathers what is not his own, and heavily loads his yoke’ (cf. Hab. 2:6 LXX). Those who pursue us are, as Jeremiah says, ‘swifter than the eagles of heaven’ (Lam. 4:19).; but we weigh ourselves down with worldly things, move slowly along the road and so are easily overtaken by our pursuer, covetousness, which Paul taught us to flee (cf. Col. 3:5). Even if we are not heavily laden, we must still run as fast as we can, or else the enemy will overtake us.”

St. Neilos the Ascetic

Scripture Readings for the Day

1 Corinthians 2:9-3:8

⁹ But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

¹⁰ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
¹³ These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ¹⁴ But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. ¹⁶ For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 3

Sectarianism Is Carnal

¹ And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. ² I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; ³ for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? ⁴ For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

Watering, Working, Warning

⁵ Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. ⁷ So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. ⁸ Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

Matthew 13:31-36

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

³¹ Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, ³² which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

The Parable of the Leaven

³³ Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”

Prophecy and the Parables

³⁴ All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, ³⁵ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying:

“I will open My mouth in parables;
I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.”

The Parable of the Tares Explained

³⁶ Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”