The Holy Anna was the daughter of the priest Matthan and his wife Mary. She was of the tribe of Levi and the lineage of Aaron. According to Tradition, she died peacefully in Jerusalem at age 79, before the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos. During the reign of Saint Justinian the Emperor (527-565), a church was built in her honor at Deutera. Emperor Justinian II (685-695; 705-711) restored her church, since St. Anna had appeared to his pregnant wife. It was at this time that her body and maphorion (veil) were transferred to Constantinople.
Memory of the Holy Women Olympiada and Euphraxia at Nicomedia in Bithynia: Olympiada was a widow who, bereft of her husband while still young, passed the remainder of her life most piously in Constantinople among women devoted to God. She was a deaconess, first in the time of Patriarch Nectraius, and then under John Chrysostom. She assisted the poor and was also very faithful to St. John Chrysostom in his exile. Euphraxia went with her mother to Egypt, traveling around the monasteries and giving alms. She received a monastic habit and entered into deep ascetic discipline.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council was held in Constantinople in the time of the Emperor Justinian the Great in the year 553. All the Monophysite heresies were condemned at this council, as were the works of Origen (against the resurrection of the dead).
O holy Anna, you are filled with the wisdom of God, and you gave birth to the most pure Mother, the one who gave birth to Life. Therefore, you have been carried up in glory on this day to the blessedness of heaven, to the abode of those who exalt with joy. And now you pray, O ever-blessed one, for the forgiveness of sins for all those who honor you with all their heart.
Let us celebrate the memory of Christ’s ancestors, and fervently ask for their help so that, delivered from all affliction, we may cry out: O God, who glorified them according to your good will, remain always with us.
Galatians 4: 22-31
Brothers and sisters: Abraham had two sons, one by the slave girl, the other by his freeborn wife. The son of the slave girl had been begotten in the course of nature, but the son of the free woman was the fruit of the promise. All this is an allegory: the two women stand for the two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, and brought forth children to slavery: this is Hagar. The mountain Sinai [Hagar] is in Arabia and corresponds to the Jerusalem of our time, which is likewise in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem on high is freeborn, and it is she who is our mother. That is why Scripture says: “Rejoice, you barren one who bear no children; break into song, you stranger to the pains of childbirth! For many are the children of the wife deserted-far more that of her who has a husband!” You, my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, as Issac was. But just as in those days sons born in nature’s course persecuted the one whose birth was in the realm of the spirit, so do we find it now. What does Scripture say on the point? “Cast out slave girls and son together; for the slave girl’s son shall never be an heir on equal terms with the son” of the one born free. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, we are not children of a slave girl but of a mother who is free.
Luke 8: 16-21
The Lord said to his disciples: “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For whoever asks, receives; whoever seeks, finds’ whoever knocks, is admitted. What father among you will give his son a snake if he asks for a fish, or hand him a scorpion if he asks for an egg? If you, with all your sins, know how to give your children good things, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who seek him.”
1 Corinthians 7:35 – 8:7
Brothers and sisters: I am going into this [advice] for your own good. I have no desire to place restrictions on you, but I want to promote what is good, what will help you devote yourselves entirely to the Lord.
If anyone thinks he is behaving dishonorably toward his virgin because a certain critical moment has come and it seems that something should be done, let him do as he wishes. He commits no sin if there is a marriage. The man, however, who stands firm in his resolve, who while without constraint and free to carry out his will, makes up his mind to keep his virgin, also acts rightly. To sum up: the man who marries his virgin acts fittingly; the one who does not, will do better.
A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If her husband dies she is free to marry, but on one condition, that it be in the Lord. She will be happier, though, in my opinion, if she stays unmarried. I am persuaded that in this I have the Spirit of God.
Now about meats that have been offered to idols. Of course we all “know” about that. But whereas “knowledge” inflates, love upbuilds. If a man thinks he knows something, that means he has never really known it as he ought. But if anyone loves God, that man is known by him. So then, about this matter of eating meats that have been offered to idols: we know that an idol is really nothing, and that there is no God but one. Even though there are so-called gods in the heavens and on the earth – there are, to be sure, many such “gods” and “lords” – for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we live; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live.
Not all, of course, possess this “knowledge.” Because some were so recently devoted to idols, they eat meat, fully aware that it has been sacrificed, and because their conscience is weak, it is defiled by the eating.
Matthew 15: 29-31
At that time Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee. He went up onto the mountainside and sat down there. Large crowds of people came to him bringing with them cripples, the deformed, the blind, the mute, and many others besides. They laid them at his feet and he cured them. The result was great astonishment in the crowds as they beheld the mute speaking, the deformed made sound, cripples walking about, and the blind seeing. They glorified the God of Israel.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Thursday, July 24 –
