The holy prophet Habakkuk was the son of Asaphat from the tribe of Simeon. He prophesied six hundred years before Christ, during the time of King Manasseh, and foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. When Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, attacked Jerusalem, Habakkuk sought refuge in the land of the Ishmaelites. Habakkuk also prophesied the liberation of Jerusalem and the time of the coming of Christ. He entered into rest in ripe old age and was buried at Kela. His relics were discovered during the reign of Theodosius the Great.
As we celebrate the memory of your prophet Habakkuk, O Lord, we implore You to save our souls through his prayers.
O Habakkuk speaking in behalf of God, you announced to the whole world the coming of God from the south and from a virgin. Standing on the divine watch, you received a message from a radiant angel: you announced the resurrection of Christ to the world. Therefore, we cry out to you: rejoice, radiant goodness of prophets.
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.’”
Luke 20: 27-44
At that time some Sadducees came forward (the ones who claim there is no resurrection) to pose this problem to Jesus: “Master, Moses prescribed that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife with no child, the brother should marry the widow and raise posterity to his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died childless. Next, the second brother married the widow, then the third, and so on. All seven died without leaving her any children. Finally the widow herself died. At the resurrection, whose wife will she be? Remember, seven married her.”
Jesus said to them: “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those judged worthy of a place in the age to come and of resurrection from the dead do not. They become like angels and are no longer liable to death. Sons of the resurrection, they are sons of God. Moses in the passage about the bush showed that the dead rise again when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for him.”
Some of the scribes responded, “Well said Teacher.” They did not dare ask him anything else. Jesus said to them: “How can they say that the Messiah is the son of David? Does not David himself say in the psalms, ‘The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand while I make your enemies your footstool’? Now if David accords him the title ‘lord,’ how can he be his son?”
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Sunday, December 1 –
