Sunday

Matthew 8:5-13  The Centurion who asks Jesus to heal is servant.

A centurion (a Gentile) commanded 100 men in a Roman legion. Jesus is the Savior of all, and in Him ethnic distinctions are void. I will come has been read as a question by many Greek scholars: “Shall I come?” Regardless, Jesus is ready to deal graciously with this Gentile and even to enter his house, which would make Him unclean in the eyes of the Jews.
 
The centurion expresses unusual faith in calling Jesus, who is a Jew, Lord. The statement, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof,” is frequently quoted in liturgical texts as an ideal expression of humility. Twice in the gospels it is said of Jesus that He marveled: (1) at the unbelief in His hometown of Nazareth (Mk 6: 6), and (2) at the belief of this foreigner.
 
Here Jesus nullifies any ideas of ethnic superiority. The rejected sons of the kingdom are both the Jews who deny Christ and those raised in the Church who do not live their faith; outer darkness and weeping and gnashing are descriptions of the state of the unrighteous dead in Sheol (Hades) in the Jewish tradition.

Monday
Parable of the Friend

Lulke 11:5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. 9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread[d] from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Explanation Orthodox Study Bible:  This parable demonstrates God’s faithfulness to those who are in need and who pray with persistence (v. 8). The Fathers interpret midnight as both the time of our death and a time of great temptation. The friend is Christ, who, as our only source of grace, provides everything we need. 11: 9– 13 In Greek, the verbs rendered ask, seek, and knock imply a continuing action and are better translated, “keep asking,” “keep seeking,” and “keep knocking.” God responds when we persistently ask for things that are good. Bread, fish, and an egg are all images of life and symbolize the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Tuesday
Parable of the Rich Fool

Luke 12:  16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’  21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Explanation:  ‘Whose will those things be which you have provided?’   is the key to understanding the saving up of material goods. St. John Chrysostom writes that the only barns we need we already have: “the stomachs of the poor.” St. Basil the Great taught that the bread in our cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging unused belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in our closet belong to the one who has no shoes; and the money we hoard belongs to the poor. St. Ambrose teaches, “The things which we cannot take with us are not ours. Only virtue will be our companion when we die.” Even when Joseph stored up grain in Egypt (Gn 41), it was for the benefit of the whole nation. These teachings apply to parishes as well as to each person.

Wednesday

From the Prologue of St. Nikolai:

God hears the prayers of the just. This is clearly seen from the lives of Moses, Elias, and the other Old Testament righteous ones and prophets, as well as from the lives of the apostles and saints. While St. Genevieve lived a life of asceticism as a nun in Paris, it so happened that Attila with his savage Huns surrounded Paris. Fear and terror overcame the entire population, who awaited at any moment the capture of the city by the enemy. Then St. Genevieve called upon the people to fast and pray to God that the calamity might be averted. Many men and women responded to the call of this saint and began to fast and pray to God. Genevieve herself fasted more strictly than all, and prayed most ardently to God. After a short while, the enemy turned away from Paris without any visible reason and departed for another place. That which the sword of many sinners cannot do, the prayer of the righteous person can.

Thursday

Parable of the Builders

Luke 6: 46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.[h] 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell.[i] And the ruin of that house was great.”

Explanation:  Hearing the gospel alone is not enough, for salvation is based not on hearing alone, nor on faith alone, but also on doing the things spoken by Christ

Friday

New Wineskins

Luke 5:36 Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one;[d] otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved.[e] 39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately[f] desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’”

Explanation:  The old garment and old wineskins stand for the Old Covenant and the Law, viewed as imperfect and temporary; the new wineskins are the New Covenant and those in Christ. The new wine is the Holy Spirit dwelling within renewed people, who cannot be constrained by the old precepts of the Law.

Saturday

From St. Nikolai:

Fruit, fruit, and only fruit does the Lord seek from every living tree which is called a man. Good fruit is a God-loving heart, and evil fruit is a self-loving heart. Everything

else that a man possesses and enjoys— position, authority, honor, health, money and knowledge— are but the leaves on the tree. Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire (Matthew 3: 10). Even the non-Christian peoples valued good deeds more than fine words. How much more must it be the rule for the followers of Christ. At a council of the Athenians, at which were present representatives of the Spartans, a certain elderly man moved from bench to bench, seeking a place to sit. The Athenians mocked him and did not relinquish a seat to him. When the old man approached the Spartans, everyone rose to their feet and offered him a seat. Upon seeing this, the Athenians praised the Spartans in eloquent terms. To this the Spartans replied: “The Athenians know what is good, but they do not do good.” Whoever performs good deeds resembles a tree that brings forth good fruit for its householder. The source of goodness in man is a good, God-loving heart.