Daily Bread
Saturday, December 14, 2024
“Human life is but of brief duration. ‘All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever’ (Isa. 40:6). Let us hold fast to the commandment that abides, and despise the unreality that passes away.”
— St. Basil the Great
Daily Scripture Readings
Galatians 1:3-10 (Epistle)
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Luke 14:1-11 (Gospel)
1 Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely.
2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy.
3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go.
5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
7 So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them:
8 “When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him;
9 and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place.
10 But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.
11 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted
Martyrs Philemon, Apollonios, Arrian, and Theonas of Alexandria
These Saints lived during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (ca. 290). Arrian, the ruler of Thebes in Egypt, arrested 37 Christians, including Saints Askalon and Leonidas (May 20). Arrian gave them the choice of sacrificing to the idols, or being tortured and executed. Most preferred to die rather than deny Christ. One of them, the Reader Apollonios, was afraid of being tortured, so his gave his clothes and four gold coins to a pagan musician named Philemon (Philḗmon) to offer sacrifice to the idols in his place. Philemon wore Apolonnios' clothes and covered his face. As he approached the altar, his heart was illumined with divine grace, and the eyes of his mind were opened. He made the Sign of the Cross and confessed Christ.
The ruler asked what this meant, and Philemon cried aloud, "I am a Christian, and the servant of Christ."
Then Arrian sent for Philemon to come and play his flute, in order to calm "Apollonios" so that he would be more inclined to worship idols. Arrian's servants could not find Philemon, so instead they brought his brother Theonas. Recognizing his disguised brother, Theonas laughed and said, "Philemon stands before you."
Arrian ordered Philemon's face to be uncovered, then told him to take off Apollonios' garments and to offer sacrifice with him. Instead, Philemon ridiculed the pagan "gods." He said that he had truly become a Christian, although he had not been baptized. Philemon prayed fervently, and suddenly a heavy rain fell, which was a Baptism for him.
Since it was Apollonios who caused Philemon to believe, Arrian brought him before him as well, and this time he confessed Christ. As a result, Arrian tortured them cruelly, and then beheaded them.
Immediately, Arrian was stricken with blindness. Saint Philemon appeared to him in a dream and told him to smear some dirt from his grave on his eyes, and he would be cured. That is exactly what happened. Then Arrian and his four bodyguards believed in Christ, and later they were all martyred together circa 305.
Two Kinds of Confidence
In Homily 27, St. Isaac the Syrian speaks of two kinds of confidence. The first kind of confidence is what we generally mean when we say someone is confident. That is, the person is sure about what he or she is doing or saying. St. Isaac tells us that this kind of confidence is spiritually dangerous. It is dangerous because we live in an age of changeability, or “ununiformity” as it is translated in the Holy Transfiguration edition of St. Isaac’s text. This ununiformity refers to the mutability or inconstancy we experience in this world. Things and people don’t stay the same.
On a basic biological level, human beings change. Not only do our bodies change with age, but even on a moment by moment basis, our moods and our ability to think clearly are easily altered by what we have eaten, how much sleep we have had or how we feel about what is happening around us. (Excitement or fear release adrenaline, for example. Other chemicals such as endorphin, dopamine, and oxytocin are also influenced by the foods we eat and external stimuli, dramatically affecting our moods, our ability to think clearly and how we feel about what we think or experience—thus further influencing our body’s chemistry).
If this changeability truly occurs on a merely biological level, it is even more certainly occurs, according to St. Isaac, on the intellectual and even the spiritual level. St. Isaac says,
“The different states of men’s hearts and the dissimilar ways of thinking that are usually born of them…are greatly assisted by the ununiformity of the theoria that arises in men’s minds concerning God’s judgements.”
That is, people don’t think the same way about God, about God’s judgements (about what God is doing in the world and in their lives). As you probably know already, two people can have what seems to be exactly the same experience, but draw very different conclusions based on that same experience. Two people can hear the same lecture, for example, but go away with very different conceptions of what the lecture was about. Two people can read the exact same prayer or bible verse and one be profoundly touched, encouraged and motivated by it while the other person seems to get nothing at all out of it. Even the same person can one day find profound comfort and encouragement in a particular thought or reflection, but two days later see nothing at all profound about the same thought.
Modern western culture wants to deny, or at least seem to limit or control, this mental changeability. Culturally speaking, it seems that in the west science provides the mirage by which we are trained not to attend to this changeability. We tell ourselves that science is about the careful observation of measurable and repeatable phenomena, and thus we comfort ourselves that consistency in thought is possible, that there is indeed a foundation on which to base our confidence. However, as anyone who has spent much time in the world of the academy knows, scientists are not very good at listening to one another, despite the facts; not very good at putting aside their egos, even in the face of observed phenomena; not very good at acknowledging the whole truth—especially the bits that don’t fit well into their theory. Scientists are, basically, just like everyone else: struggling to make a living and a name for themselves within a structure that is generally agreed upon, a structure in which certain incongruences are politely overlooked while others are focused on.
Then suddenly, every now and then, a conceptual revolution or profound paradigm shift takes place, and how scientists see the universe deeply changes. But this change, this (we might say) evidence of changeability, does not produce humility in the mass of us scientifically-minded, university-trained thinkers—although it does seem sometimes to produce humility in a few of the most gifted and best trained scientific thinkers—but for most of us, a change in paradigm (such as the development of quantum physics) only increases our confidence as we arrogantly exult in our new found bit of insight and lament how misguided the previous generations were.
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 12/9: Matins 8:30 am; Steward’s Meeting 6:30pm
Tuesday 12/10: no services or events
Wednesday 12/11: no services or events
Thursday 12/12: Matins 8:30 am
Friday 12/13: Paraklesis to Theotokos 8:30 am
Saturday 12/14: Catechumen Class 4:30 pm; Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday 12/15: Divine Liturgy 9:15 am
