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Friday of the Renewal Week
The commemoration of Hieromartyr Symeon, the kinsman of Jesus.
No Fasting. Bright Week - No Fasting All Week
The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 7]. In those days:
3 1Peter and John were going up together into the temple during the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2And a certain man, lame from his mother’s womb, was being carried, whom they used to lay daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those going into the temple; 3who, seeing Peter and John being about to go into the temple, began asking alms. 4And Peter, looking intently upon him with John, said, “Look on us.” 5And he began to give heed to them, expecting to receive something from them. 6But Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, this I give to thee: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaræan, rise up and be walking.” 7And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankle bones were strengthened. 8And leaping up, he stood and went on walking and entered with them into the temple—walking and leaping and praising God.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 7]. At that time:
2 12Jesus went down to Capernaum, He, and His Mother, and His brethren, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days. 13And the passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14And He found in the temple those who sell oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting. 15And after He made a scourge out of cords, He cast out all from the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the small pieces of money, and turned upside down the tables of the money changers. 16And He said to those who sold doves, “Take away these things from this place. Cease making the house of My Father a house of merchandise.” 17And His disciples were reminded that it is written: “The zeal for Thy house shall eat me up [cf. Ps. 68(69):12(9)].” 18Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign showest Thou to us, seeing that Thou doest these things?” 19Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it.” 20Then the Jews said, “In forty and six years was this temple built, and wilt Thou raise it up in three days?” 21But He was speaking about the temple of His body. 22When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples were reminded that He was saying this to them, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus said.
The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 131]. Brethren:
4 9I think that God showed forth us the apostles last, as condemned to death; for we became a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. 10We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are held in honor, but we are dishonored. 11Until the present hour, we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are being buffeted, and never at rest. 12And we toil working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we bear up; 13being evilly spoken of, we beseech. We became as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all until now. 14I do not write these things shaming you, but admonishing you as my beloved children. 15For if ye have myriads of tutors in Christ, yet ye have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel. 16Therefore, I beseech you, keep on becoming imitators of me.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 56]. At that time:
13 54After Jesus came into His own country, He was teaching the crowds in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished and said, “From what place hath this One this wisdom and the works of power? 55“This is the carpenter’s Son, is it not? His Mother is called Mariam, is she not, and His brothers, Iakovos, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? 56“And His sisters are all with us, are they not? From what place then hath this One all these things?” 57And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house.” 58And He did not do many works of power there because of their unbelief.
May 10th — Civil Calendar April 27th — Church Calendar
1. The Holy Apostle Simeon.
One of the Seventy, he was the son of Cleopas, and Cleopas was the brother of Joseph, the betrothed of the most holy Mother of God. Seeing the miracles of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Simeon was converted and included among the Seventy apostles. With great zeal and courage, he preached the Gospel everywhere in Judea. When the wicked Jews killed James, the Lord’s brother and first bishop of the Church in Jerusalem, throwing him down from the top of the Temple and then stoning him to death, this Simeon, Joseph’s nephew, was installed as bishop in Jerusalem. He, as the second Bishop of the Holy City, governed the Church of God with wisdom and strength to a great age. He was more than a hundred years old when he suffered, and his sufferings came about as follows: in the time of the Emperor Trajan there was a double persecution begun in Palestine, against the descendants of David and against the Christians. The wicked people condemned Simeon on both counts. St Simeon endured harsh torture and was finally crucified, as had been the Lord Whom he had faithfully served on earth.
2. Our Holy Father Stephen, Bishop of Vladimir.
A disciple of St Theodosius of the Kiev Caves, Stephen was at one time abbot of the Monastery of the Caves and laboured greatly in the regulation and organization of the monastic life and in the beautifying of the churches. But the enemy inflamed an evil monk against him, and he was not only removed from the abbacy but driven from the monastery. But God, Who does not leave the righteous long under the humiliation of the unrighteous, so guided the life of blessed Stephen that he was chosen as Bishop of Vladimir. As God’s hierarch, Stephen guided the Church to old age and departed this life in the Lord peacefully in 1094.
3. The Burning of the Relics of St Sava, Archbishop of Serbia.
The body of St Sava was buried at Mileseva. In the time of the Turkish occupation, the Serbian people gathered together round the relics of their Saint, to seek support and healing. Fearing that a rebellion against the Turks might be stirred up in that place, Sinan Pasha of Belgrade commanded that St Sava’s relics be brought to Belgrade and burned there at Vracar. This was done on April 27th, 1594. But, with the burning of the saint’s relics, the wicked Pasha did not burn the Saint, who remains alive before the throne of God in heaven and in the hearts of his people on earth.
4. Our Holy Father John the Confessor.
He was the abbot of the community ‘of the Pure’ (the Catharoi). This community was founded near Nicaea during the reign of Justin, in the 6th century. For his veneration of icons during a ban on such veneration, St John suffered much at the hands of the Emperors Leo and Theophilus, and died under their persecution in about 832.
FOR CONSIDERATION
True faith will be persecuted in this world. The Saviour Himself said this to His apostles clearly and publicly (Jn 16:32). And St Apollinarius of Hierapolis, writing against the Montanist heretics, asserts: ‘Let them tell us, before God, who of all their prophets, beginning with Montanus and his wives, has been persecuted by the Jews and killed by the ungodly. No one. Who among them has been arrested for the name of Christ, and crucified? Again, no-one. Have any of their women been flogged or stoned in the Jewish synagogues? No.’ This Orthodox saint means to say that it is true faith that will be persecuted in this world. Heresies are usually closer to the worldly and demonic spirit, and therefore the world and the demons do not persecute their own. To be constantly under persecution—with short breathing-spaces—is a distinguishing mark of the Faith and of the Orthodox Church. This persecution has existed throughout the whole of history, whether externally or internally; externally from unbelievers and internally from heretics.
Daily Scripture Readings taken from The Orthodox New Testament, translated and published by Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, copyright © 2000, used with permission, all rights reserved.
Daily Prologue Readings taken from The Prologue of Ochrid, by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, translated by Mother Maria, published by Lazarica Press, Birmingham, England, copyright © 1985, all rights reserved.
