Sunday
Reading  Luke 14:16-24 about those who refused to come to the banquet when invited

That servant who was sent is Christ Himself, who being by nature God and the true Son of God, emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant. But He was sent at supper time. For not in the beginning did the Word take upon Him our nature, but in the last time; and he adds, For all things are ready. For the Father prepared in Christ the good things bestowed upon the world through Him, the removal of sins, the participation of the Holy Spirit, the glory of adoption. To these Christ bade men by the teaching of the Gospel. But whom can we suppose these to be who refused to come for the reason just mentioned, but the rulers of the Jews, whom throughout the sacred history we find to have been often reproved for these things?
 St. Cyril of Alexandria
*This is the Sunday of the ‘Forefathers’…the ancestors of Christ

Monday
Exodus 32

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

2 And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.

Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” 6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves….

19 So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses’ anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 Then he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it. 21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?”

Tuesday

Exodus 34
27 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. 29 Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him.

Wednesday

Exodus 40
17 And it came to pass in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was raised up. 18 So Moses raised up the tabernacle, fastened its sockets, set up its boards, put in its bars, and raised up its pillars. 19 And he spread out the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it, as the Lord had commanded Moses. 20 He took the Testimony and put it into the ark, inserted the poles through the rings of the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the ark. 21 And he brought the ark into the tabernacle, hung up the veil of the covering, and partitioned off the ark of the Testimony, as the Lord had commanded Moses…. 34 Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 36 Whenever the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, the children of Israel would go onward in all their journeys. 37 But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not journey till the day that it was taken up. 38 For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

Thursday

We will start reading some of Orthodox Archbishop Averky’s commentary on the Gospels that summarize and explain events.

While the Evangelists Matthew and Luke write of the earthly birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, St. John begins his Gospel by expounding the teachings about His pre-eternal birth and His incarnation as the Only Son of God. The first three Evangelists begin their narrations with that event as a consequence of which the Kingdom of Heaven received its beginning in time and space, while Saint John, akin to an eagle, soars to the pre-eternal basis of this Kingdom, observing the eternal existence of Him Who only in “these last days” (Hebrews 1:1) became a human being.

The second person of the Holy Trinity — the Son of God — is named by John as “the Word.” At this point, it is important to note and remember that the Greek word “logos,” unlike the corresponding word in Russian, doesn’t only mean the spoken word but also thought, reason, and wisdom expressed by word. Consequently, the naming of the Son of God as “the Word” means the same as His being named “Wisdom” (see Luke 11:49 and Matthew 23:34). The holy Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:24 calls Christ “the Wisdom of God.”

Undoubtedly, the teachings about “God’s wisdom” are expressed in the same sense in Acts (see especially the wonderful text of Proverbs 8:22-30). After this it’s strange to insist, as some people do, that St. John derived his teachings on the Logos as if from the philosopher Plato and his successors (such as Philo). St. John wrote about events that were known to him from the Holy Books of the Old Testament — and also about that which, as a beloved disciple, he learned from the Divine Teacher Himself, as well as what was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

Friday

“In the beginning was the Word” means that the Word is co-eternal with God. What’s more, St. John explains further that with respect to His existence, the Word does not separate from God, and consequently It is of one essence with God, and finally, he directly calls the Word God: “and the Word was God.” Here, the word “God” was applied in Greek without any article, giving rise to the assertion by the Arians and Origen that the Word is not the same God as God the Father. However, this is simply a misunderstanding. In reality, this hides a most profound conception of the distinction of the three countenances of the Holy Trinity. The use of an article in Greek indicates that the dialogue is about the same subject as that just spoken of. So if in saying “the Word was God,” the Apostle had used the same article and said “o Theos” in Greek, the result would have been the incorrect idea that the Word was the same as God the Father, Who had been referred to just before. Consequently, in speaking of the Word, the Evangelist calls Him simply “Theos” indicating by this His Divine quality, but also at the same time underlining that the Word has an independent hypostatic existence and is not identical to the hypostasis of God the Father.

As Blessed Theothylact notes, in revealing to us the teachings on the Son of God, St. John calls Him Word and not Son, “so that we, having heard of the Son, did not think in terms of passion and carnal birth. He called Him the Word, so that you would know that as the word is born from the mind without passion, so is He born from the Father without passion.”

Saturday

The words “all things were made through Him” are not meant as though the Word was only an instrument in the creation of the world but that the world originated from the Primal Reason and Primal Source of all existence (including the Word Himself) — God the Father, through the Son, Who by Himself is already the source of everything that began to exist (that was made), only not for Himself and not for the other countenances of God.

“In Him was life” — here the meaning of the word life is not to be understood in the ordinary sense but as a spiritual life that induces intelligent creatures to strive toward the cause of their creation, toward God. This spiritual life is obtained through the path of communion and unification with the hypostatic Divine Word. Consequently, the Word is the source of genuine spiritual life for any intelligent being.

“And the life was the light of men” — has in mind that this spiritual life that emanates from the Divine Word enlightens a person with a full and complete guidance.

“And the light shines in the darkness . . .” The Word that presents light of genuine guidance does not cease to direct them amid sinful darkness, as the light is not absorbed by darkness: Those who persist in sin have preferred to remain in the darkness of spiritual blindness. However, “the darkness did not comprehend it” — did not restrict its activity and dissemination.

Then, in order to join the people who abode in sinful darkness with His Divine light, the Word undertook extraordinary measures: John the Baptist was sent, and, finally, the Word became flesh.