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November 22
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Wednesday |
New Style
December 5
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28th Week after Pentecost.
Tone 2.
Nativity Fast. |
 Monastic rule: cooked food, no oil.
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Afterfeast of the Entry into the Temple. Apostles of the Seventy Philemon and Archippus, Martyr Apphia, wife of Philemon, and St. Onesimus, disciple of St. Paul (1st c.). 
Martyrdom of St. Michael, great prince of Tver (1318).
Martyrs Cecilia, Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, at Rome (ca. 230). Martyr Menignus, at Parium (250). Martyr Procopius the Reader, at Caesarea in Palestine (303). St. Agabbas of Syria (5th c.). Righteous Michael the Soldier, of Bulgaria (866). St. Yaropolk-Peter, prince of Vladimir in Volhynia (1086).
New Hieromartyrs Ioasaph (Zhevakhov), bishop of Mogilev, Gerasim (Mochalov), hieromonk of the Zosima Hermitage (Smolensk), and Alexis Benemansky, archpriest, of Tver (1937). New Monk-martyrs Eutychius (Didenko), Abner (Sinitsyn), Sava (Suslov), and Mark (Makhrov), of Optina Monastery, and with them Martyr Boris Kozlov (1937).
Martyr Agapion of Greece (304). Martyrs Stephen, Mark, and Mark (another), at Antioch in Pisidia (4th c.). St. Germanus of Eikoiphinissa in Macedonia (9th c.). St. Clement of Ochrid, bishop of Greater Macedonia (916).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Wednesday. [I Tim. 5:22-6:11; Luke 18:15-17, 26-30]
Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. How is one to receive it as a little child? Here is how: in simplicity, with full heart, without a moment’s thought. A rational analysis is not applicable in the realm of faith. It can have place only on its threshold. An anatomist divides the whole body into its details, but does not see life. So also reason, no matter how much it reasons, does not comprehend the power of faith. Faith itself provides the contemplations which taken together show that faith completely satisfies all the needs of our nature, and obliges our consciousness, conscience, and heart to receive the faith. They receive it, and having received it, do not want to fall behind. Then, it is like tasting pleasant and healthy food. Having tasted once, we know that it is suitable, and we rank it amongst the nourishing substances. Chemistry does nothing to force this conviction, neither before nor after the tasting. Our conviction is founded upon direct, personal experience. Thus, the believer knows the truth of the faith directly. Faith itself instils in him the unshakeable conviction that it is faith. How, then, could faith be a faith of reason? In this lies the reasonableness of faith, to directly know that it is faith. Reason only ruins things, cooling faith and weakening life according to faith; but the main thing is that it is arrogant, and chases away God’s grace—an evil in Christianity of the first degree.
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