The holy great martyr Anastasia was born into a senatorial family in Rome, and she was a Christian from a tender age. Forced by her father to marry a pagan landowner, she refused to have marital relations with him. For this, her husband has her tortured and imprisoned. When her husband drowned during a business trip, she began to openly minister to Christians and to all the poor who needed help. She was arrested again, starved to death, and finally bound to a wheel over and open fire and killed. (304)
How truthfully names are you for the Resurrection, O martyr of Christ. By enduring suffering you gained victory over the enemy for the sake of Christ your Bridegroom. Pray to Him to save our souls.
Those in temptations and afflictions hasten to your church, and receive honorable gifts of divine grace dwelling in you, O Anastasia, for you ever pour out healing on the world.
Hebrews 3:5-11 17-19
Brothers & sisters: Moses “was faithful in all 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 fathers 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.’”
Mark 9:42- 10:1
The Lord said, “It would be better if anyone who leads astray one of the simple believers were to be plunged in the sea with a great millstone fastened around his neck. If your hand is your difficulty, cut it off! Better for you to enter life maimed than to keep both hands and enter Gehenna with his unquenchable fire. If your foot is your own doing, cut it off! Better for you to enter life crippled than to be thrown into Gehenna with both feet. If your eye is your downfall, tear it out! Better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to be thrown with both eyes into Gehenna, where ‘the worm dies not and the fire is never extinguished.’ Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is excellent in its place; but if salt becomes tasteless, how can you season it? Keep salt in your heart and you will be at peace with one another.”
From where Jesus moved on to the districts of Judea and across the Jordan. Once more crowds gathered around him, and as usual he began to teach them.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Monday, December 22 –
