Monday, September 5, 2089
Prophet Zachariah and Elizabeth; Holy Hieromartyr Athanasius of Brest-Litovsk (1649); Holy Martyrs Abda the bishop, Hormizd and Sunin of Persia (4th c)
Monday of the 12th week after Pentecost
Tone 2. No fast. What this means
The Epistle
2 Corinthians 5:10–15
For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
11Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences. 12For we are not commending ourselves to you again, but speak as giving you occasion of boasting on our behalf, that you may have something to answer those who boast in appearance and not in heart. 13For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sober mind, it is for you. 14For the love of Christ compels us; because we judge thus: that one died for all, therefore all died. 15He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
The Gospel for Zacharias
Matthew 23:29–39
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the tombs of the righteous, 30and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ 31Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? 34Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. 36Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! 38Behold, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Commemorated today
- Prophet Zachariah and Elizabeth
- Urban, Theodore, & Medimnos the Hieromartyrs and the 77 Companions at Nicomedea
- Holy Hieromartyr Athanasius of Brest-Litovsk (1649)
- Holy Martyrs Abda the bishop, Hormizd and Sunin of Persia (4th c)
Hymns and lives of the saints are on the Online Chapel of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.