Great-martyr Parasceva of Iconium (3rd c.). Martyrs Terence and Neonilla, of Syria, and their children Sarbelus, Photus, Theodulus, Hierax, Nitus, Bele, and Eunice (249). St. Stephen of St. Sabbas Monastery, hymnographer (807). St. Arsenius I of Srem, archbishop of Serbia (1266). Repose of St. Job, abbot and wonderworker of Pochaev (1651). St. Demetrius, metropolitan of Rostov (1709).
Martyrs Terence, Africanus, Maximus, Pompeius, and 36 others, at Carthage (250). Hieromartyr Cyriacus, chorepiscopus of Jerusalem, and his mother Martyr Anna (363). Hieromartyr Neophytus, bishop of Urbnisi, Georgia (7th c.). St. John the Chozebite, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine (532). Repose of St. Theophilus, fool-for-Christ, of Kiev (1853). St. Arsenius of Cappadocia (1924). St. Nestor (not the Chronicler) of the Kiev Caves (14th c.). Righteous Virgin Parasceva of Pirimin on the Pinega River (Arkhangelsk) (16th c.).
New Hieromartyr Michael Lektorsky, archpriest, of Kuban (1920). New Hieromartyr Constantine (Dyakov), metropolitan of Kiev (1937).
Protection of the Mother of God.
St. Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (ca. 269), and St. Malchion, priest (late 3rd c.). St. Febronia, daughter of Emperor Heraclius (632). St. Athanasius I, patriarch of Constantinople (Mt. Athos) (1340). St. Hyacinth, metropolitan of Wallachia (1372). New Martyrs Angelis, Manuel, George, and Nicholas, at Rethymno on Crete (1824).
Repose of Elder Epiphanius (Theodoropoulos) of Athens (1989).
Tuesday. [I Thess. 1:6-10; Luke 11:1-10]
The Lord gave a common prayer for
everyone, combining in it all of our needs, spiritual and
bodily, inner and outer, eternal and temporal. But since
it is impossible to include everything which one has to
pray to God about in life in only one prayer, a rule is
given after the common prayer for private requests about
something: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. So
it is done in the Church of God: Christians pray in common
about common needs, but each privately sets his own needs
and requirements before the Lord. We pray in common in
churches according to established rites, which are nothing
other than the Lord’s Prayer which has been
explained and presented in various ways; while privately,
at home, everyone asks the Lord about his own things in
whatever way he can. Even in church one can pray about
one’s own concerns, and at home one can pray with a
common prayer. We must concern ourselves about only one
thing: that when we stand at prayer, at home or in church,
we have true prayer in our soul, true turning and lifting
up of our mind and heart to God. Let everyone do this as
he is able. Do not stand like a statue, and do not mutter
the prayers like a street organ wound up, playing songs.
As long as you stand like that, and as long as you mumble
the prayers, you are without prayer, the mind wandering
and the heart full of vain feelings. If you already stand
in prayer and are adjusted to it, is it difficult for you
to draw your mind and heart there as well? Draw them
there, even if they have become unyielding. Then true
prayer will form and will attract God’s mercy, and
God’s promise to prayer: ask and it will be given,
it will be fulfilled. Often it is not given because there
is no petition, but only a posture of petitioning.