In the town of Catania below the volcanic Mount Ezra, lived our venerable father Leo, a good shepherd and compassionate teacher of the people. He had great concern for the sick and the poor. His zeal for the Faith was as great as his charity toward the less fortunate. A magician named Heliodorus appeared in Catania and deluded the people with various illusions, greatly demoralizing the youth of the town. At one time during divine services, Heliodorus entered the church of God and began his obscenities. St. Leo approached him, tied him to one end of his pallium, and led him to the marketplace. Here Leo ordered that a large fire be built. When it was raging, Leo stood in the middle of the blaze and pulled Heliodorus into the fire. Heliodorus was completely consumed, but Leo remained alive and unscathed. All who had been bewitched by Heliodorus and who had looked upon him as someone divine, were ashamed. The compassionate and zealous Leo was proclaimed throughout the entire kingdom as a great miracle-worker, who helped men by his shining miracles. St. Leo fell asleep in the Lord around the year 787, and from his relics flowed a healing myrrh.
The sincerity of your deeds has revealed you to your people, as a teacher of moderation, a model of faith, and an example of virtue. Therefore, you attend greatness through humility, and wealth through poverty. O father and bishop Leo, ask Christ our God to save our souls.
The Church sees you as a brilliant light in the heavens, shining more radiantly than the sun. Preserve her unconquered and indestructible to heresy, and keep her ever spotless, O blessed saint, for we honor your memory at all times.
The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.
So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman. When he brought her to the man, the man said”
“This one, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.
Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He asked the woman,” Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?” The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’” But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you? He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I am naked, so I hid.” Then God asked: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat? The man replied, “The woman who you put here with me– she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.” The Lord God then asked the woman: What is this you have done? The woman answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the snake:
Because you have done this, cursed are you among all the animals, tame or wild;
On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.
To the woman he said:
I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
To the man he said: Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat from it,
Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
And you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken;
For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The man gave his wife the name “Eve,” because she was the mother of all the living.
The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, established the heavens by understanding;
By his knowledge the depths are split, and the clouds drop down dew.
My son, do not let these slip from your sight: hold deliberation and planning;
So will they be life to your soul, and an adornment for your neck.
Then you may go your way securely; your foot will never stumble;
When you lie down, you will not be afraid, when you rest, your sleep will be sweet.
Do not withhold any goods from the owner when it is in your power to act.
Say not to your neighbor, “Go, come back tomorrow, and I will give it to you,” when all the while you have it.
Do not plot evil against your neighbors, when they live at peace with you.
Do not contend with someone without cause, with one who has done you no harm.
Do not envy the violent and choose none of their ways:
To the Lord the devious are an abomination, but the upright are close to him.
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but the dwelling of the just he blesses;
Those who scoff, he scoffs at, but the lowly he favors.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Thursday, February 19 –
