Daily Bread

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Apr 03, 2025

Isaiah 42:5-16 (6th Hour)

5 Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it:

6 “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles,

7 to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

8 I am the Lord, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images.

9 Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

10 Sing to the Lord a new song, and His praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you coastlands and you inhabitants of them!

11 Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.

12 Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare His praise in the coastlands.

13 The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies.

14 “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once.

15 I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, and I will dry up the pools.

16 I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them.

Genesis 18:20-33 (Vespers, 1st reading)

20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave,

21 “I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

22 Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord.

23 And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

24 “Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it?

25 “Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26 So the Lord said, “If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”

27 Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord:

28 “Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?” So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.”

29 And he spoke to Him yet again and said, “Suppose there should be forty found there?” So He said, “I will not do it for the sake of forty.”

30 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?” So He said, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31 And he said, “Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?” So He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.”

32 Then he said, “Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.”

33 So the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

Venerable Niketas the Confessor, Abbot of Medikion

Saint Niketas (Nikḗtas) the Confessor was born in Bithynian Caesarea (northwest Asia Minor) of a pious family. His mother died eight days after his birth, and his father Philaretos became a monk. The child remained in the care of his grandmother, who raised him in a true Christian spirit. From his youth Saint Niketas attended church and was a disciple of the hermit Stephanos. With his blessing, Saint Niketas set off to the Mydicia monastery, where Saint Nikephoros (Nikēphóros) (March 13) was the igumen.

After seven years of virtuous life at the monastery, famed for its strict monastic rule, Saint Niketas was ordained presbyter. Saint Nikephoros, knowing the holy life of the young monk, entrusted to him the guidance of the monastery when he himself became ill.

Not wanting power, Saint Niketas devoted himself to the enlightenment and welfare of the monastery. He guided the brethren by his own example. Soon the fame of the lofty life of its inhabitants of the monastery attracted many seeking salvation. After several years, the number of monks had increased to one hundred.

When Saint Nikephoros departed to the Lord in his old age, the brethren unanimously chose Saint Niketas as igumen.

The Lord granted Saint Niketas the gift of wonderworking. Through his prayer a deaf-mute child received the gift of speech; two demon-possessed women were healed; he restored reason to one who had lost his mind, and many of the sick were healed of their infirmities.

During these years under the emperor Leo the Armenian (813-820), the Iconoclast heresy resurfaced and oppression increased. Orthodox bishops were deposed and banished. At Constantinople a council of heretics was convened in 815, at which they deposed the holy Patriarch Nikephoros (806-815), and in his place they chose the heretical layman Theodotus. They also installed heretics in place of exiled and imprisoned Orthodox bishops.

“I Pray And Go To Church, But I Don’t Feel Faith. What Should I Do?”

The editorial office of Foma journal (after Thomas the Apostle) received a question from a reader:

“Hello! I can’t feel faith with all my heart. I try to observe the fasts, take Communion, read the morning and evening rules, but the feeling is that everything is external, shallow. I just know that this should be done, and that’s all. I try to confess carefully, but also only in words: at the moment of confession I do not feel anything special. Of course, sometimes I feel shame for some things, but not as often as necessary.”

Archpriest Pavel Velikanov, Rector of the Pyatnitsky Metochion of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, Head of the Department of Theology of the Moscow Theological Academy, the first vice-rector of the Sretensky Theological Seminary, answers the question.

It often happens that fasting, prayer and worship (external church rules) do not find a response in the soul. There is a kind of dissonance between what we do and what we feel.

Archimandrite Victor (Mamontov) said: “In order to come to faith, you should come to yourself, feel silence within yourself, and realize the importance of your spirit”. The main thing that needs to be done is to overcome heart petrification and fill mechanical actions with meaning.

Thereto:

First: do not try to identify or measure your sense of faith.

A Christian is not the one who feels that he is a great ascetic, but the one who longs for Christ, loves Him and wants to be like Him. Moreover, it would be even strange if you said: “I am a true Christian, because I am no different than Christ.” When a person feels that he has already achieved something in the field of spiritual life and no longer needs spiritual growth, they say that he fell under the delusion.

But God does not reveal to us the state of our sinfulness so that we constantly felt guilty and became discouraged. Understanding how far we are from ideal, on the contrary, should be a source of movement forward for us.

However, this reader, speaking of “faith with all my heart”, sets an a priori unattainable goal. You can, of course, demand from a child trying to paint for the first time, to depict a picture of Van Gogh, but this will be meaningless and will only push him away from art. A good teacher will start with something small, what the child is already good at. Only in this way you can arouse his desire to draw further, and only then the student will move from the smaller to the larger.

The same case is with faith in God. You cannot say: “Until I believe with all my heart, I will not become a Christian.” Faith does not have a “cutoff threshold” on the basis of which we could define faith as real or, on the contrary, not strong enough. The Church has not yet developed a scorecard for the spiritual state of the believer and, I hope, this will never happen.

The only indicator of faith that we have is expressed in the apostle’s covenant: “Give thanks for everything and always be rejoicing”. When a person begins to see and praise God in everything he comes into contact with, he begins to live by faith. And this is the main token of “faith with all one’s heart.”

This week’s calendar reminders:

Monday 3/31: Lenten Matins 8:30 a.m.
Tuesday 4/1: no services or events
Wednesday 4/2: Presanctified Liturgy 6:30 pm (potluck meal to follow)
Thursday 4/3: no matins; Canon of St.Andrew 7 p.m.
Friday 4/4: Paraklesis to the Theotokos 8:30 am
Saturday 4/5: Catechumen Class 4:30 pm; Choir Rehearsal 4:30 pm; Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday 4/6: Divine Liturgy 9:15am;