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.”
Romans 14: 6-9
Brothers and sisters: The man who observes the day does so to honor the Lord. The man who eats does so to honor the Lord, and he gives thanks to God. The man who does not eat abstains to honor the Lord, and he too gives thanks to God. None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master. While we live we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die we die as his servants. Both in life and in death we are the Lord’s. That is why Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Matthew 15: 32-39
At that time Jesus called his disciples to him and said: “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd. By now they have been with me for three days, and have nothing to eat. I do not wish to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.” His disciples said to him, “How could we ever get enough bread in this deserted spot to satisfy such a crowd?” But Jesus asked them, “How many loaves of bread do you have?” “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.” Then he directed the crowd to seat themselves on the ground. He took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. All ate until they were full. When they gathered up the fragments left over, these filled seven hampers. The people who were fed numbered four thousand, apart from women and children. Then, after he had dismissed the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the district of Magadan.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Friday, July 24 –
