Saturday, May 23
Orthodox Daily Devotional
Scripture Reading
JOHN 9: 13 They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. 14 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15 Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.17 They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?”He said, “He is a prophet.” 18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. 19 And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”20 His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21 but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
Orthodox Wisdom
“While it is day” means I must work while people can still believe on me as long as this life lasts. “The night comes,” that is, the future, “when no one can work.” He did not say, “when I cannot work” but “when no one can work,” that is, when there is no longer faith, labors or repentance. For to show that he called faith a “work,” … he replied, “This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent.” Why then can no one do this kind of work in the future world? Because there is no faith there, but all, whether willingly or unwillingly, will simply submit.
St John Chrysostom
New Calendar Saints & Lectionary Scriptures