Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious, and All-Praised Twelve Apostles: Peter, Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Jude the brother of James, Simon the Zealot, and Matthias.
St. Peter, prince of the Tatar Horde, wonderworker of Rostov (1290). Glorification of St. Sophronius, bishop of Irkutsk (1918). St. Andrew, prince of Bogoliubovo (1174). St. Stephen of Omsk (1877).
New Hieromartyrs Nicandor (Prusak), hieromonk of Tolga Monastery (Yaroslavl) (1918) and Theogenes (Kozyrev), archimandrite, of Chimkent (Kazakhstan) (1939).
Icon of the Mother of God of Balikin (1711).
Martyr Basilides the Soldier, at Alexandria (202). St. Martial, bishop of Limoges (3rd c.). St. Erentrude, abbess of Nonnberg Monastery, Salzburg (ca. 718). St. Dinara, queen of Khereti, Georgia (10th c.). St. Gelasius of Rimet (Transylvania) (14th c.). New Martyr Michael Paknanas the Gardener, of Athens (1770). New Hieromartyr Milan Popovic, priest, of Rmanj (1940s). New Martyr Alexander (Schmorell) of Munich (1943). Martyr Peter of Sinope.
Repose of Bishop Nestor (Zass) of the Aleutians and Alaska (1882).
Thursday. [I Cor. 3:18-23; Matt. 13:36-43]
And shall cast them
(those who offend and do iniquity) into a furnace of
fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
Kingdom of their Father. Thus will be carried out the
division of good and evil, light and darkness. Now is the
period of time in which they are mixed. It pleased the
Lord to arrange that the freedom of creatures should grow
and be strengthened in good through the struggle with
evil; evil is tolerated within the vicinity of inward
freedom, and in contact with a person externally. It does
not determine anything, only tempts. One who feels a
temptation must not fall, but enter into battle. He who
conquers is freed from one temptation, and advances
forward and upward to find new temptation there—and
so on, until the end of his life. Oh, when will we
comprehend this meaning of the evil which tempts us, so we
might arrange our lives according to this understanding!
The strugglers are finally crowned, and pass on to the
other life where there is neither sickness nor sorrows
from the outside, and where they become inwardly pure like
angels of God, free from the sting of tempting
inclinations and thoughts. This is how the triumph of
light and good is being prepared, and it will be revealed
in all of its glory on the last day of the world.