Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel. St. Stephen of St. Sabbas Monastery (794).
St. Julian, bishop of Cenomanis (Le Mans) in Gaul (1st c.). Martyr Serapion, under Severus (ca. 205). Martyr Marcian of Iconium (258).
St. Sarah, abbess, of Scetis (370). Sts. Heliophotus, Epaphrodites, Ammon, Auxouthenius, and Euthenius, monks, of Cyprus (5th c.). St. Just, monk, of Cornwall (5th c.). St. Mildred, abbess of Minster Convent in Thanet (ca. 733). Synaxis of the Saints of Hilandar, Mt. Athos.
Repose of Constantine Oprisan of Jilava, Romania (1959).
Tuesday. [I Cor. 1:1-9; Matt. 13:24-30]
The good seed was sown, but the enemy
came and sowed tares among the wheat. The tares in the
Church are heresies and schisms, and in each of us they
are bad thoughts, feelings, desires, and passions. A
person accepts the good seed of the word of God, decides
to live in a holy way, and begins to live in this way.
When such a person falls asleep, that is, when his
attention toward himself weakens, then the enemy of
salvation comes and places evil ideas in him, which if not
rejected at the start ripen into desires and dispositions,
introducing their own spheres of activity, which mix
themselves in with good deeds, feelings and thoughts. Both
remain together this way until the harvest. This harvest
is repentance. The Lord sends the angels—a feeling
of contrition and the fear of God, and they come in like a
sickle, then burn up all the tares in a fire of painful
self-condemnation. Pure wheat remains in the grain-house
of the heart, to the joy of the man, the angels, and the
most Good God worshipped in the Trinity.