Our venerable father Daniel the Stylite was born in the village of Bethara, near the city of Samosata in Mesopotamia. His mother Martha was childless for a long while and in her prayers she vowed that if she had a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. Her prayers were heard, and Martha soon gave birth to a son, who was without a name until he was five years old. Transported by the manner and example of St. Simeon, Daniel stood on a column, not subdued by force of cold or heat or wind, for thirty-three years and three months. St. Daniel also possessed the gift of gracious words. He guided many onto the path of correcting their lives as a priest of Constantinople. The monk reposed in his eightieth year in 489.
You became a column of endurance and rivaled the forefathers, O venerable one, becoming like Job in your sufferings and like Joseph in your trials, and like the bodiless angels though you lived in the flesh. O Daniel our father, intercede with Christ God that He may save our souls.
Having ascended the pillar like a radiant star, O blessed One, you illumined the world with your venerable deeds, and dispelled the darkness of deception, O Father, therefore we pray you: shine forth even now the never setting light of understanding into the hearts of your servants.
Hebrews 3: 5-11, 17-19
Brothers and sisters: Moses “was faithful in God’s household” as a servant charged with the task of witnessing to what would be spoken; but Christ was faithful as the Son placed over God’s house. It is we who are that house, if we hold fast to our confidence, and the hope of which we boast.
Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you should hear his voice, harden, not your hearts, as at the revolt in the day of testing in the desert, when your father’s tested and tried me, and saw my works for forty years. Because of this I was angered with that generation, and I said, ‘They have always been of erring heart, and have never known my ways.’ Thus I swore in my anger, ‘They shall never enter into my rest.’”
With whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not those who had sent, whose corpses fell in the desert? To whom but to the disobedient did he swear that they would not enter into his rest? We see, moreover, that it was their unbelief that kept them from entering.
Mark 8:11-21
At that time the Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus. They were looking for some heavenly sign from him as a test. With a sigh from the depths of his spirit Jesus said: “Why does this age seek a sign? I assure you, no such sign will be given it!” Then he left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.
They had forgotten to bring any bread along; except for one loaf they had none with them in the boat. So when Jesus instructed them, “Keep your eyes open! Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod,” they concluded among themselves that it was because they had no bread. Aware of this Jesus said to them, “Why do you suppose that it is because you have no bread? Do you still not see or comprehend? Are your minds completely blinded? Have you eyes but no sight? Ears but no hearing? Do you remember when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets of fragments did you collect?” They answered, “Seven.” He said to them again, “Do you still not understand?”
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Sunday, December 10 –
