December 18, 2023

Events of the day

• St Sabbas the Sanctified

  Polyeleos rank

Fasting

Fast day · Nativity Fast

Nativity Fast, Monday: cooked food without oil.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not allowed
• Oil: not allowed
• Wine: not allowed

Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill.

Readings of the day

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15

• Matins Gospel

  Luke 6:17–23

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  ¹⁷He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;

  ¹⁸as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed.

  ¹⁹All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all.

  ²⁰He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours.

  ²¹Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

  ²²Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

  ²³Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

• Epistle

  Hebrews 3:5–11, 17–19

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  ⁵Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken,

  ⁶but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

  ⁷Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,

  ⁸don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

  ⁹where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.

  ¹⁰Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’

  ¹¹As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ”

  ¹⁷With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

  ¹⁸To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

  ¹⁹We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

• Epistle · St Sabbas

  Galatians 5:22–6:2

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  ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,

  ²³gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

  ²⁴Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

  ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.

  ²⁶Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.

  ¹Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted.

  ²Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

• Gospel

  Luke 20:27–44

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  ²⁷Some of the Sadducees came to him, those who deny that there is a resurrection.

  ²⁸They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up children for his brother.

  ²⁹There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless.

  ³⁰The second took her as wife, and he died childless.

  ³¹The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died.

  ³²Afterward the woman also died.

  ³³Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”

  ³⁴Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage.

  ³⁵But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.

  ³⁶For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.

  ³⁷But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’

  ³⁸Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”

  ³⁹Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you speak well.”

  ⁴⁰They didn’t dare to ask him any more questions.

  ⁴¹He said to them, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son?

  ⁴²David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,

  ⁴³until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” ’

  ⁴⁴“David therefore calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”

• Gospel · St Sabas

  Matthew 11:27–30

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  ²⁷All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

  ²⁸“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

  ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.

  ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, Julian calendar. Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Morning prayer of St Macarius the Great