Daily Bread
Friday, February 21, 2025
2 John 1:1-13 (Epistle)
1 The Elder, to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all those who have known the truth,
2 because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:
3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
4 I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.
5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another.
6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.
9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him;
11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
12 Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.
13 The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen.
Mark 15:22-25, 33-41 (Gospel)
22 And they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull.
23 Then they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to drink, but He did not take it.
24 And when they crucified Him, they divided His garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take.
25 Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.
33 Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
35 Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!”
36 Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.”
37 And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.
38 Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
39 So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”
40 There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joses, and Salome,
41 who also followed Him and ministered to Him when He was in Galilee, and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.
Venerable Timothy of Symbola in Bithynia
Saint Timothy of Symbola was of Italian descent. He became a monk at a young age and pursued asceticism at a monastery called “Symbola”, in Asia Minor near Mount Olympus. At that time Theoctistus was the archimandrite of the monastery. Saint Timothy was the disciple of Theoctistus and also of Saint Platon of the Studion Monastery (April 5).
Attaining a high degree of spiritual perfection, he received from God the gift of healing the sick and casting out unclean spirits. He spent many years as a hermit, roaming the wilderness, the mountains and forests, both day and night offering up prayer to the Lord God. He died at a great old age, in the year 795.
The Sign of Sincere Love
TWhat is forgiveness? According to the dictionary it means “to cease to feel resentment against (an offender)” or “to grant relief from a payment.”
It is no surprise then that the gospel reading speaks of forgiveness in these terms of debts and payments. But the truth is that it is easy to speak about forgiveness. It is easy to imagine ourselves being forgiving people. But in reality it can be very very difficult to forgive others. The more difficult it is for us to forgive others, the more it is a sign of the hurt and pain that they have caused us. But here is the rub, the more hurtful that the actions of someone have been towards us, the more important it is for us to focus on the task of forgiving them. Why? Because the pain and the resentment that you feel towards that person is a sign of the space they have taken up in your heart. But if we don’t remove that resentment from our hearts, there is no space left for God.
Sometimes we want people to make things right. To restore what they have taken from us. Sometimes we want them to apologize. Sometimes those things happen. Sometimes people go out of their way to ask forgiveness and to try and correct situations where they may have offended others. But guess what? Sometimes, that doesn’t happen. So what do we do with that as people of God? Well, what would God do? Rather, what has God done?
When we look at the image of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified we are granted the gift of seeing love incarnate, mercy incarnate and yet forgiveness incarnate. Forgiveness made flesh. You pray and you tell God that it is difficult to forgive others and He alone can stare back at you and agree with you. Forgiveness is difficult. Yet the heart of Jesus Christ was filled with with divine mercy and forgiveness for all of mankind, even those who were involved with His betrayal and crucifixion, even those who stand around at the cross and mocked Him while He was in the midst of the most brutal suffering imaginable. So God understands forgiveness. He understands what He asks and demands of us as His children. And as we focus our eyes on Him we find the strength and the courage necessary to heal and to reflect this forgiveness because we know that from the depths of our heart, we needed Christ’s forgiveness. Each one of us has sinned. Each one of us has sometimes hurt others either in deed or word or thought. Each one of us has had moments when we are less than perfect. Each of us has had moments where we made enemies of others or we were enemies of God.
Today in the Orthodox Church we celebrate the memory of one of the great saints, Moses the Ethiopian. Can I tell you something? He was a terrible human being. He was a gang leader, a murderer, a thief and who knows what else. Yet one day the love of Christ somehow reached in through the smallest crack in his stone heart, and a change began to take place. Here we are more than 1600 years later and we still speak about this man who lived in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Why? Because this man Moses, knew that God had forgiven him so much and he reflected this sense of gratitude for God’s love and forgiveness for the rest of his life. His life was truly transformed and he radiated the love and mercy of a God who had forgiven him of every terrible, rotten and sinful thing he had ever done. How could he not be transformed by such forgiveness?
Everything becomes easier when we turn our perspective and our focus back to Christ. But everything becomes far more difficult as we turn inwardly and focus on our feelings, our emotions, our pains, our memories of the past. When we dwell in that place, we are dwelling near hell. Instead we want to acknowledge the past and turn our gaze towards Christ. We have been forgiven, my brothers and sisters and so we choose to forgive. We live through God’s forgiveness and so we choose to live forgiveness daily. And we have plenty of opportunities for practicing don’t we?
Families are a great place to practice forgiveness. Not only parents forgiving children but children forgiving parents and siblings forgiving siblings. How sad it is that some grown siblings don’t talk and don’t communicate with one another! In a house where there is forgiveness starting from the top down, this might be avoided.
It is the same here in the life of the Church. We are a close knit family and often through some careless words or actions, we find that we might have offended or hurt others. Let us run to ask forgiveness and let us run twice as quickly to offer genuine forgiveness to those who are seeking this gift. This doesn’t only apply to the people, but to the priest and deacon and yes even the hierarchs of the Church. It is built into the liturgy in fact. The priest turns around before partaking of the Holy body and blood of Christ and he asks forgiveness of everyone. Hopefully this also has a healing top down effect in the life of the church.
We have plenty of opportunities for struggle and growth especially in the area of forgiveness because people just like us, will continue to be less than perfect and give us plenty of chances to practice this art. Yet we are convinced that there is a path forward because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and God forgave us all. May we focus our lives on this and allow it to change us and to make us holy men and women. St. Mark the Ascetic wrote, “The sign of sincere love is to forgive wrongs done to us. It was with such love that the Lord loved the world.”
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 2/17: Matins 8:30 am
Tuesday 2/18: no services or events
Wednesday 2/19: no services or events
Thursday 2/20: Matins 8:30 am; Men’s Group 7 pm
Friday 2/21: Matins 8:30 am
Saturday 2/22: Catechumen Class 4:30 pm; Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday 2/23: Divine Liturgy 9:15am; Meatfare Sunday; Greg Stevenson Baptism
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Christ the Savior Orthodox Church is located in Southbury, Connecticut, and is part of the New England Diocese of the Orthodox Church of America.
Mailing address: Christ the Savior Church, 1070 Roxbury Road, Southbury, CT 06488
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Fr. Moses Locke can be reached at frmoseslocke@gmail.com