| Previous day |    |
Next day |
| Old Style
April 21
|
Monday |
New Style
May 4
|
| 4th Week after Pascha. Tone 3. |  Fast-free period.
|
Hieromartyrs Januarius, bishop of Benevento, and his companions: Festus, Proclus, and Sosius, deacons; Martyrs Desiderius, reader; and Gantiol, Eutychius, and Acutius, at Pozzuoli (ca. 305). Martyrs Theodore of Perge in Pamphylia, his mother Philippa, and Dioscorus, Socrates, and Dionysius (ca. 138-161). Uncovering of the relics of St. Theodore, abbot, of Sanaxar Monastery (1999). St. Alexis, priest, of Bortsumany, Nizhni- Novgorod (1848).
Martyrs Isaacius, Apollo, and Codratus, of Nicomedia (303). St. Maximus (Maximian), archbishop of Constantinople (434).
Martyr Alexandra the Empress, wife of Diocletian (303) (same as April 23). St. Maelruba of Apur Crossan, Ireland (722). New Hieromartyr Protopresbyter Basil Martysz of Teratyn (Chelm and Podlasie, Poland (1945).
Repose of Schemamonk Nicetas (1907) and Hieroschemamonk Antipas II (1912), of Valaam, Elder Dometian of Tula (1908), and Nun Stefanida of Kosovo (Serbia) (1945).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Monday. [Acts 10:1–16; John 6:56–69]
When the Lord presented His teaching about the mystery of His Body and Blood, setting it as a necessary condition for communication with Himself and as a source of true life, then many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him (John 6:66). Such an act of God’s boundless mercy toward us seemed too miraculous to them, and their disinclination toward the miraculous tore them from the Lord. The Lord saw this, and although He was prepared to be crucified for the salvation of every person, He did not consider it possible to diminish or cancel the miraculous. It is so crucial in the economy of our salvation! Albeit with regret, He allowed them to depart from Him into the darkness of unbelief and destruction; and said to them and to the chosen twelve as well, will ye also go away? (John 6:67) This showed that He was ready to let them go also, if they could not bow down before the miraculous. So it is, that to flee from the miraculous is to flee from the Lord and Saviour; and one who turns away from the miraculous is as one who is perishing. May those who are horrified by the miraculous heed this! Even they will come across a miracle which they will not be able to thwart: death, and after death, judgment. But whether this inability to thwart it will serve them unto salvation, only God knows.