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Daily Readings:
Saints/Martyrs/Feasts/Fasts to be observed/commemmorated/celebrated:
Scriptural Readings:
Saint Mark 8:30-34 (1/19-2/1) Gospel for Wednesday: Thirtieth Week after Pentecost
The Faith to Follow: Saint Mark 8:30-34, especially vs. 31: “...and He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” This passage from Saint Mark’s Gospel straddles the two major portions of his Gospel. It separates the account of the Lord Jesus’ early ministry (1:1-8:30) from His final disputes with the religious leadership, His Passion, Death, and Resurrection (8:31-16:20). Keep this transition in mind while reading these verses.
Immediately preceding this passage is a record of a discussion concerning the Lord Jesus’ identity (Mk. 8:27-29) which concludes with Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ (vs. 29). The Lord then directs His disciples to “...tell no one about Him” (vs. 30). Instead, He speaks of His Passion, the Resurrection, and the cost of discipleship - the primary subject of the present reading and the predominating theme throughout the remainder of Saint Mark’s narrative.
The new teaching that the Lord introduces at this point is at least sobering: “...the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (vs. 31). This instruction first was shared with the disciples, but very soon after given to the crowds (vss. 32,34), as the word ‘openly’ suggests.
In His declaration, the Lord Jesus refers to Himself ambiguously. The term, ‘the Son of Man,’ served either as a title or was simply a common Semitic way of referring to one’s self. Whichever the Lord intended, ‘Son of Man,’ effectively kept His role as Messiah ‘secret’ from the crowds. While suppressing His identity as the Christ publicly, He allowed the disciples to ‘digest’ two seemingly contradictory truths: His identity as Messiah, and His coming Passion.
Still, the crowds heard the Lord Jesus say that He was going to suffer, die, and rise on the third day. It seems that the Lord was preparing both His disciples and the multitudes for the reality of a suffering Messiah, One Who would embrace suffering and death to overcome them.
Along with the new information of what lay ahead, the Lord gave a warning: each of His followers should also expect necessarily to take up his own cross (vs. 34). Truthfully, to follow the Lord always entails this readiness to suffer with Him and for Him.
Understand what ‘the faith to follow’ means for anyone facing martyrdom: to live as Christ directs even to suffering and death and without compromise. This often entails not bending to threats of death. The Church has a glorious history of such witnesses. ‘Faith to follow’ has likewise produced a radiant company of ‘confessors,’ those who have suffered, but not unto death. Additionally, there is inevitable suffering for every disciple who follows in faith.
Holy Tradition affirms the necessary ‘suffering of the heart’ for every follower. This includes contrition, the ‘joyful sorrow’ of repentance, the deep truth of Orthodox Christian life. Metropolitan Vlachos is quite frank about the importance of such pain for Christians: “A Christian life without pain is bogus. Pain of the heart is essential for salvation.”
Whether suffering is physical, psychological, or spiritual, God receives it on “...His holy, most heavenly and ideal altar....” Saint Paul says: “We have an altar...,” a “...sanctuary...” and a “...high priest for sin....Jesus” Who sanctifies His “...people with His own blood....Therefore let us go forth to Him...”(Heb. 13:10-13). The present ‘comfort culture’ encourages fleeing pain. Saint John Chrysostom, as a Confessor, observed that “...by their trials the righteous flourished. For the soul is purified when it is afflicted for God’s sake.” To follow Christ is to choose to suffer for the priceless fruit of the Holy Spirit (see Gal. 5:22,23).
O Christ our God, help us be more bold in denying ourselves and in following Thee.
Hebrews 10:1-8
Hebrews 10:1-8 (King James Version)
Hebrews 10
1For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
5Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
7Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
8Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
Mark 8:30-34
Mark 8:30-34 (King James Version)
30And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.
31And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
33But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
34And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
The Synaxarion:
January 19
Memory of our venerable Father Makarios the Egyptian (ca. 300-390)
Our Father among the Saints Arsenios of Corcyra (end of the Tenth century)
Saint Makarios was born in Upper Egypt about the year 300. Palladius says: "He lived ninety years, of which he spent sixty in the desert of Skete, where he retired when thirty years old. He commanded the attention of all to such an extent that he was called 'the young old man.' He progressed so rapidly in perfection that at the age of forty he received the grace of expelling demons and of predicting the future. He was also judged worthy of the priesthood." He died around the year 390.
Saint Arsenios was born in Bethania, Palestine, under Emperor Basil I (867-886). Consecrated to God in his infancy, he took the monastic habit when he was twelve years old and, without doubt, went to study in Seleucia, on the Orontes River, where he received priestly ordination. From there he went to Constantinople under hegumen Tryphon, who subsequently became Patriarch in 928, and he was consecrated Archbishop of Corcyra by Patriarch Theophylaktos to quiet the unjust resentment of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (912-956) against the eminent persons of Corcya. On the way home, he fell ill at Corinth and died at an unknown date.
Fifth Class Feast.
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