Hieromartyr Athenogenes, bishop of Heracleopolis, and his ten disciples (ca. 311).
Martyrs Paul and two sisters, Chionia (Thea) and Alevtina (Valentina), at Caesarea in Palestine (308). Martyr Antiochus, physician, of Sebaste (4th c.). Commemoration of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (451). Virgin-martyr Julia of Carthage, at Corsica (440). St. Theodotus, monk of Glinsk Hermitage (1859). St. Magdalena, schema-abbess of New Tikhvin Convent in Siberia (1934). Synaxis of Russian Saints glorified at the Moscow Councils of 1547 and 1549.
New Confessor Matrona Belyakova, fool-for-Christ, of Anemnyasevo (1936). New Hieromartyrs James (Maskaev), archbishop of Barnaul, and priests Peter and John, and with them Monk-martyr Theodore (Nikitin) and Martyr John (1937). New Hieromartyr Ardalion (Ponamarev), archimandrite, of Kasli (Chelyabinsk) (1938).
Icon of the Mother of God of Chirsk-Pskov (1420).
Martyr Helier of Jersey (6th c.). St. John of Vishnya and Mt. Athos, activist against Uniatism (c. 1630). New Martyr John of Turnovo (1822). 15,000 Martyrs of Pisidia.
Wednesday. [I. Cor. 10:12-22; Matt. 16:20-24]
When the Holy Apostles confessed the
Saviour to be the Son of God, He said, I
must…suffer…and be killed. The work
had ripened; it remained only to complete it through the
death on the cross. The same thing occurs in the course of
a Christian’s moral progress. While he is struggling
with his passions, the enemy still hopes somehow to tempt
him; but when passions have settled down and the enemy no
longer has enough power to awaken them, he presents
external temptations, all sorts of wrongful accusations,
moreover, the most sensitive. He tries to plant the
thought: “So what did you work and struggle for? No
good will come of it for you.” But when the enemy
thus prepares a war from without, the Lord sends down the
spirit of patience to his struggler, thereby preparing a
lively readiness in his heart for all sorts of suffering
and hostility before the enemy can manage to stir up
trouble. As the Lord said about Himself, I must
suffer, spiritual strugglers also feel a sort of
thirst for sorrows. And when the suffering and hostility
come, they meet them with joy, and drink them in like a
thirsting man drinks cooling water.