July 19, 2024

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

Fasting

Fast day · Wednesday / Friday

Wednesday and Friday: fast without meat, dairy or eggs. Whether fish is allowed depends on the day's feast — check the church calendar.

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

  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.”

• Epistle

  Romans 11:25–36

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  ²⁵For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,

  ²⁶and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

  ²⁷This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”

  ²⁸Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake.

  ²⁹For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

  ³⁰For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience,

  ³¹even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy.

  ³²For God has bound all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.

  ³³Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!

  ³⁴“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”

  ³⁵“Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”

  ³⁶For of him, and through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.

• Epistle · St Seraphim

  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

  Matthew 12:1–8

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  ¹At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

  ²But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, “Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

  ³But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him;

  ⁴how he entered into God’s house, and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

  ⁵Or have you not read in the law, that on the Sabbath day, the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless?

  ⁶But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.

  ⁷But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless.

  ⁸For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

• Gospel · St Seraphim

  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.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, New Calendar (OCA practice). Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers