Hieromartyr Pancratius, bishop of Taormina in Sicily (1st c.).
Hieromartyr Cyril, bishop of Gortyna on Crete (ca. 303). Monkmartyrs Patermuthius and Coprius, and Martyr Alexander the Soldier, of Egypt (361-363). Sts. Patermuthius and Coprius, ascetics, of Egypt (5th c.). St. Theodore, bishop of Edessa (9th c.). Uncovering of the relics of St. Gabriel, archimandrite of St. Elias Skete, Mt. Athos (1994). Hieromartyr Peter, priest, of Cherevkov (Vologda) (early 17th c.).
Hieromartyrs at Wurzburg: Killian, bishop in East Franconia and Thuringia, and his companions Hieromonk Colman and Hierodeacon Totman (689). St. Everild, abbess, of Northumbria (ca. 700). St. Theodosius, stylite, of Edessa (9th c.). St. Photius, founder of Akapniou Monastery in Thessalonica (10th c.). Sts. Dionysius the Rhetorician (1606) and Metrophanes (17th c.), of Little St. Anne’s Skete, Mt. Athos. New Hieromartyr Methodius, bishop of Lappa on Crete (1793).
Repose of Righteous Patermuphy of Valaam and St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra (ca. 1825), Hierodeacon Melchizedek of the Roslavl Forests (1840), and Priest Ilie Lacatusu of Romania (1983).
Monday. [Rom. 16:17-24; Matt. 13:10-23]
Why do many people not understand
discussions about spiritual things? It is due to a
thickening of their heart. When their heart is full of
attachments to earthly things, it grows coarse, as is
said, he grew fat, he grew thick, he waxed broad
[Deut. 32:15]. In this state it gravitates downward like a
heavy-weight, dragging and chaining the entire soul to the
ground, together with the mind. Then, always churning in
its circle of low objects, it becomes low in its thought
and cannot soar up on high, like a bird weighed down with
food. Churning there, it does not see the heavenly, and
its entire disposition is against it… Heaven is an
alien country to these people. Such a person has nothing
within the sum total of his understanding and experience
to which he could relate the heavenly, that he might be
able to see it if only through a glass darkly [cf. Cor.
13:12]. That is why he won’t try to discuss it, nor
does he wish to listen to others discussing it, and he
won’t pick up any books written about it.
Isn’t this why you’ll often find any number of
secular magazines in people’s homes, but not a
single spiritual periodical or book—not even the
Gospels?