{"id":5184,"date":"2018-07-21T20:05:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T00:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5184"},"modified":"2018-07-19T20:45:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T00:45:32","slug":"july-22-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=5184","title":{"rendered":"July 22-28"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday<\/p>\n

Matthew 14:\u00a014\u00a0<\/sup>And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. <\/span> 15\u00a0<\/sup>When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, \u201cThis is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

16\u00a0<\/sup>But Jesus said to them, \u201cThey do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

17\u00a0<\/sup>And they said to Him, \u201cWe have here only five loaves and two fish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

18\u00a0<\/sup>He said, \u201cBring them here to Me.\u201d<\/span> <\/span> 19\u00a0<\/sup>Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. <\/span> 20\u00a0<\/sup>So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. <\/span> 21\u00a0<\/sup>Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.<\/span><\/p>\n

22\u00a0<\/sup>Immediately Jesus [a<\/a>]<\/sup>made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Commentary from St. Hillary…<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
“Then the loaves are given to the Apostles, because through them the gifts of divine grace were to be rendered. And the number of them that did eat is found to be the same as that of those who should believe; for we find in the book of Acts that out of the vast number of the people of Israel, five thousand men believed.”<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Monday<\/div>\n
**We will return to the commentary next week…St. Nikolai’s Prologue is used this week…<\/div>\n
\n

\u201cGood works are accomplished not by our efforts alone, but by the power and will of God. Nevertheless, God demands effort on our part in conforming to His will.\u201d These are the words of Saints Barsanuphius and John\u2014 few words, but much is said in them. We are obliged to labor, cultivate and prepare every good thing, and if some good will take\u00a0\u00a0root, grow, and bring forth fruit, that is up to the power and will of God. We plow the furrows, and God sows\u2014 if He wills it. We cleanse the vessels of the Spirit, and God pours the Spirit into these vessels\u2014 if He wills it. He can do anything if He wills it. And He will do everything that answers to the highest wisdom and wholeness, that is, to His plan of man\u2019s salvation. In interpreting the words of our Lord, Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10: 16), St. John Chrysostom writes that our Lord gave this commandment to His disciples that \u201cthey themselves should cooperate in some way, so that it will not appear that all effort is of grace alone and so that they will not think that they received the wreaths of glory for nothing.\u201d And so, both of them are indispensable for our salvation: our effort and the power of God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n

Tuesday<\/p>\n

This is how our Lord spoke just before His most horrible humiliations, before being bound, before being spat upon, before being slapped, and before being ridiculed prior to His Crucifixion. In His darkest hour, He speaks about His greatest and most glorious hour. Before His most terrible and miserable departure from this world, He speaks about His Second Coming in His glory. At His first appearance, He came from the cave in Bethlehem, humble and unseen. The second time He will come on the clouds of His angels. The first time He appeared like a nobody from the earth, and the second time He will appear from the heavens. The first time He stood and knelt on the ground, and the second time He will sit on His throne of glory. When He comes again on His throne of glory, He will not be unseen by anyone. No one will ask, as did the Magi before His first coming: \u201cWhere is the King?\u201d Everyone will see the King and recognize Him as the King. But this vision and recognition will be unto joy for some, and unto fear and terror for others. Just think of the joy of those who have fulfilled His commandments, those who have prayed in His name, those who have performed good works and especially those who have suffered for His name! Just think of the fear and terror of all those who spat on Him, struck Him, and crucified Him in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Wednesday<\/p>\n

No one, not even the Lord Himself, takes pleasure in instructing the proud. No one wants to give instruction to him who cries out that he knows everything. Mysteries shall be revealed to the meek, says the wise Sirach (Sirach 3: 19). David also speaks of God, saying: He guides the meek to justice, He teaches the meek His way (Psalm 25: 9). The proud person is he who wants to teach everyone yet does not want to be taught anything by anyone. The humble man is he who does not wish to teach anyone but continually desires to be taught by someone, no matter whom. An empty ear of corn raises its head above the field, and the full ear of corn hangs down with a bowed head. O proud man, if only your guardian angel would somehow remove the veil from your eyes and show you the endless open sea of all that you do not know. You would kneel before every man before whom you have exhibited pride and kneel before every man whom you have belittled. You would cry out lamenting: \u201cForgive me, forgive me! I do not know anything!\u201d Often the humble and pious have the time of their death revealed to them, but the death of the proud comes unexpectedly and without warning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Thursday<\/p>\n

All the nations will be assembled before the Lord Jesus when He appears in His glory, surrounded by the holy angels, sitting on a throne as the Judge of all the living and the dead. All the nations will be assembled\u2014 all, without exception. Not only the Jews who tormented Him, not only the Christians who glorified Him, but also the heathen who neither knew Him nor acknowledged Him. For if He were not to appear to all nations, He would have to send someone or give something to all nations for them to know God\u2019s will and receive the message of salvation. That is why all the nations must appear before Him for judgment. Oh, what an awesome and majestic spectacle, when all the nations and all the tribes on earth are assembled before the Lord, Who is brighter than many suns. What joy for the holy martyrs and confessors when they see how, in this countless mass of nations, there is not one tongue left to deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus! But it will be of no value to anyone in that hour and place to recognize and to confess the divinity of our great Lord, if they denied Him on earth. Accounts will be settled there and then, with no gain and no loss. With whatever one appears before the Lord, with that he will be either condemned or justified. Now is the time to acknowledge the divinity of the Lord Jesus\u2014 now, when many deny Him and when His divinity is doubted by many. They who love the Lord and who trust in all of His words will easily acknowledge this. For when He says this, what do those who love Him have to worry, to doubt, or to hesitate about?<\/p>\n

Friday<\/p>\n

Great are those Christians who have a great love for Christ. Oh, in truth, how great were those Christians, those God-bearing fathers and martyrs! For so many in our time, this is impossible even to imagine. This is what one of them, St. Simeon the New Theologian, confessed before all the monks in his monastery. Speaking from his own personal experience about how the words of the Lord, For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light (Matthew 11: 30), were realized in him, Simeon said: \u201cBelieve me, when I fled to God my Savior, I did not encounter anything sorrowful, difficult or unbearable. The only great and unbearable sorrow I had was that I could not find sufficient means to die for the love of Christ.\u201d Are not such souls like burning flames enclosed in earthen vessels? Burning flames are always upright, directed toward heaven. Only remove the covering and the flame will shoot upward.<\/p>\n

Saturday<\/p>\n

In His shame and humiliation, the Just One does good to His enemies. He reconciles them. It is true, in this case, that their reconciliation did not create mutual cooperation for some good deed but mutual persecution of the Just One. At least the flame of hatred between them was extinguished and died out. That was due to the Just One. Pilate and Herod had been enemies. On the day when the Savior was brought for judgment before both of them, they were reconciled. The Prince of Peace brought peace between the quarreling parties: peace which helped to hew out a cross for Him. But He also came to be a willing sacrifice for the sins of many. Even today common enemies make peace among themselves when they find it necessary to attack and condemn the Lord. There are many who kill one another until you mention the name of the Lord to them. As soon as they hear that name, they\u00a0gradually make peace among themselves for the sake of attacking that holy name. It is easier for the unjust to tolerate the unjust than it is for them to tolerate the just. It is easier for the unjust to come to an understanding and reconcile with the unjust than with the just.\u00a0\u00a0Why is it that the Most-pure and the Most-needed had to be awarded the last place? Because, according to their thinking, the first place would then be reserved for them. The same incentive was there between sworn enemies, the Pharisees and Sadducees, when it was deemed necessary to seek Christ\u2019s death. The same incentive was the occasion that caused the reconciliation between Pilate and Herod when it was deemed necessary to judge that Christ had to be put to death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday Matthew 14:\u00a014\u00a0And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. 15\u00a0When it was evening, His disciples […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-daily-devotional","has_no_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5185,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184\/revisions\/5185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}