The holy martyr Lupus was a servant of St. Demetrius of Salonica. When his master was beheaded by the emperor Maximian, Lupus dipped the hem of his garment and his ring into his master’s blood. Through these relics he worked many miracles, even though he was not yet baptized. Having miraculously received the Holy Mysteries, he was beheaded in the year 306.
The holy martyr Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, was sent by St. Polycarp from Asia Minor to preach in Gaul. He became the first bishop of Lyons and brought many pagans to the faith. In his numerous writings, Irenaeus both expounded the othrodox faith and defended it against heretics. He suffered for Christ in the year 202 during the reign of the emperor Severus.
Your martyr Lupus, O Lord our God, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from You. With Your strength, he brought down the tyrants and broke the cowardly valor of demons. Through his prayers, O Christ our God, save our souls.
You have become a brilliant star to guide the earth, heralding the dawn of Christ. You have wiped out guile and you give us light, O long-suffering Lupus. Pray unceasingly for all of us.
1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
Brothers and sisters: Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I continually thank my God for you because of the favor he has bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, in whom you have been richly endowed with every gift of speech and knowledge. Likewise, the witness I bore to Christ has been so confirmed among you that you lack no spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, and it was he who called you to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Matthew 19: 3-12
At that time some Pharisees came up to Jesus and said, to test him, “May a man divorce his wife for any reason whatever?” Jesus replied, “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and declared, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become as one’? Thus they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, let no man separate what God has joined.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command divorce and the promulgation of a divorce decree?” Jesus replied, “Because of your stubbornness Moses let you divorce your wives, but at the beginning it was not that way. I now say to you, whoever divorces his wife (lewd conduct is a separate case) and marries another commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
His disciples said to him, “If that is the case between man and wife, it is better not to marry.” Jesus said, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, only those to whom it is given to do so. Some men are incapable of sexual activity from birth; some have been deliberately made so; and some there are who have freely renounced sex for the sake of God’s reign. Let him accept this teaching who can.”
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Friday, August 22 –
