Saturday, December 7, 2069
St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; Ven. Nilus of Stolobensk; The Martyrs of Africa, who suffered during the Vandal persecution (429 and following)
Saturday of the 12th week of Luke
Tone 1. Nativity Fast: fish, wine and oil allowed. What this means
The Epistle
Galatians 5:22–6:2
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
25If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. 26Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.
1Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted. 2Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
The Gospel
Luke 13:19–29
It is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the sky live in its branches.”
20Again he said, “To what shall I compare God’s Kingdom? 21It is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
22He went on his way through cities and villages, teaching, and traveling on to Jerusalem.
23One said to him, “Lord, are they few who are saved?” He said to them, 24“Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able. 25When once the master of the house has risen up and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ then he will answer and tell you, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ 26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27He will say, ‘I tell you, I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity.’ 28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in God’s Kingdom, and yourselves being thrown outside. 29They will come from the east, west, north, and south, and will sit down in God’s Kingdom.
Commemorated today
- St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan
- Ven. Nilus of Stolobensk
- Athenodoros the Martyr of Mesopotamia
- Righteous Father Gerasimus, Ascetic of Euboia
- The Martyrs of Africa, who suffered during the Vandal persecution (429 and following)
- Our Venerable Father Antony of Siya (1556)
Hymns and lives of the saints are on the Online Chapel of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.