33rd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 8. Ven. Maximus the Confessor (662). Martyr Neophytus of Nicæa (303–5)
Tone 8 Troparion (Resurrection)
You descended from on high, O Merciful One! You accepted the three day burial to free us from our sufferings!// O Lord, our Life and Resurrection, glory to You!
Tone 4 Troparion (St. Nicholas)
The truth of your deeds has revealed you to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of self-control; your humility exalted you; your poverty enriched you.// O Father Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Tone 8 Troparion (St. Maximus)
O Champion of Orthodoxy, teacher of purity and of true worship, the enlightener of the universe and the adornment of hierarchs; all wise Father Maximus, your teachings have gleamed with light upon all things.// Intercede before Christ God to save our souls!
Tone 4 Troparion (St. Neophytus)
Your holy martyr Neophytus, O Lord, through his sufferings has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God. For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries, and shattered the powerless boldness of demons.// Through his intercession, save our souls!
Tone 6 Kontakion (Resurrection)
By rising from the tomb, You raised the dead and resurrected Adam. Eve exults in Your Resurrection,// and the world celebrates Your rising from the dead, O greatly Merciful One!
Tone 3 Kontakion (St. Nicholas)
You proved yourself to be be a holy priest, O Nicholas. You served God in Myra and lived the gospel of Christ. You offered your life for your people, And rescued the innocent from death. Therefore God has glorified you as a trustworthy guide of things divine.
Tone 6 Kontakion (Ven. Maximus)
The Thrice-radiant Light took up abode in your soul, O all-blissful father, and displayed it as an elect vessel, manifest to the ends of the earth. O blessed Maximus, you explain hard-to-grasp doctrines with brilliance and clarity,// proclaiming the transcendent and unoriginate Trinity to all.
Tone 4 Kontakion (St. Neophytus)
You shone forth from the mount like lightning, glorifying Christ through your struggles and death as a martyr.// Therefore, you have received an unfading crown, O Great-martyr Neophytus.
Tone 6 Kontakion (Steadfast Protectress)
Steadfast Protectress of Christians, Constant Advocate before the Creator; despise not the cry of us sinners, but in your goodness come speedily to help us who call on you in faith. Hasten to hear our petition and to intercede for us, O Theotokos, for you always protect those who honor you!
Tone 8 Prokeimenon (Resurrection)
Pray and make your vows / before the Lord, our God! (Ps. 75:10a)
V. In Judah God is known; His Name is great in Israel. (Ps. 75:1)
Colossians 1:12-18 (Epistle)
Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Tone 8
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
V. Come, let us rejoice in the Lord! Let us make a joyful noise to God our Savior! (Ps. 94:1)
V. Let us come before His face with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! (Ps. 94:2)
Matthew 22:1-14 (Gospel)
And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Reflection
As compassionate and lenient as the saints were toward human weakness, so terribly unyielding and unbending were they with regard to the confession of the true dogmas of the Faith. Thus, St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia struck Arius with his hand at the First Ecumenical Council [Nicaea, 325]. St. Anthony left his desert to come to Alexandria to publicly unmask Arius. St. Euthymius, being greatly pressured by the Empress Eudocia and the false Patriarch Theodosius, and being unable to debate rationally with them, left the monastery and hid in the desert; an example followed by all other distinguished monks thereafter. Euthymius remained in the desert until the pseudo-patriarch was ousted and Orthodoxy confirmed. When, in Jerusalem, the greatest agitation surfaced in the name of the emperor against the Fourth Ecumenical Council [Chalcedon, 451], and when the entire population was frightened by the heretics, then St. Theodosius the Great, already burdened with old age, came to Jerusalem as a fearless soldier of Christ, entered the Great Church, ascended the stairs, waved his hands and said to the people: “If anyone does not honor the Four Ecumenical Councils as he does the four evangelists, let him be anathema.” (Up to that time only four Ecumenical Councils had been convened.) All who heard him were frightened by these words, and none of the heretics dared to say anything contrary to them.
-Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid (pp. 114-115). Sebastian Press Publishing House.
The Venerable Maximus the Confessor
Maximus was a Constantinopolitan by birth. At first he was a high-ranking courtier at the court of Emperor Heraclius, and after that he was a monk and abbot of a monastery not too far from the capital. He was the greatest defender of Orthodoxy against the so-called Monothelite heresy, which proceeded from the heresy of Eutyches. As Eutyches claimed that there is only one nature in Christ [Monophysitism], so the Monothelites claimed that there is only one will in Christ. Maximus opposed that claim and found himself an opponent of the emperor and the patriarch. Maximus did not frighten easily, but endured to the end in proving that there were two wills, as well as two natures, in Christ. Because of his efforts, a council was held in Carthage, and another in Rome. Both councils anathematized the teachings of the Monothelites. The suffering of Maximus for Orthodoxy can hardly be described: he was tortured by princes, deceived by prelates, spat upon by the masses of the people, beaten by soldiers, exiled and imprisoned—until finally, with his tongue and one hand severed by the torturers, he was condemned to exile for life in the land of Skhimaris [near Batumi on the Black Sea], where he spent three years in prison and gave up his soul to God in the year 662.
-Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid (p. 117). Sebastian Press Publishing House.
Praying for the Afflicted
In his prayers for various people who were suffering, Elder Ephraim told us that when he would beseech God to help them, almost always he was heard. Only with those involved in magic did God withhold His sympathy and instead show His anger. “One time while I was praying, I felt a soul suffering, approaching despair. I realized that the one suffering was a spiritual brother of ours in America. He’d had a serious operation, and it was not successful. He had leukemia. He was seeking help. In such a situation, each of us then marshals his prayer with whatever strength he has: either with ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Your servant’ or with extemporaneous prayer, depending on what he feels or is able to do. “When a person is in a spiritual euphoria and prayer is welling up from a fervent heart, he flings himself upon Christ, in a manner of speaking, and perseveres with tears.” ‘My Lord, You Who are all-love and compassion, Who were sacrificed for us your enemies and forgave those who crucified You; Who desire not the death of the sinner and have sworn on Your Name; I beseech You, set aside the guilt of our suffering brother and show him mercy, heal him, relieve his pain, that he might not succumb and lose his faith. Have mercy, All-Good One, on Your creature, so that those who war against us lowly ones may not gloat in victory.’ ” Grace often fluctuates; sometimes it increases, sometimes it decreases – not Grace itself, of course, which is unchangeable, but the extent of its action, which depends upon us. Thus, according to the state in which we find ourselves, we do not cease calling upon divine assistance for the one who is suffering. God, by virtue of our own offering – which is a sacrifice of love – will have mercy on him.
-Pemptousia; of Vatopaidi, Elder Joseph. Obedience is Life: Elder Ephraim of Katounakia (1912–98) (p. 110). Holy Great Monastery of Vatopaidi.