July 13, 2020

Events of the day

• Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious and All-praised Twelve Apostles

  Polyeleos rank

Fasting

No fast

No fast today.

Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill.

Readings of the day

• Epistle

  Romans 16:17–24

• Epistle · Apostles

  1 Corinthians 4:9–16

  Show the text

  ⁹For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.

  ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.

  ¹¹Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.

  ¹²We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.

  ¹³Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

  ¹⁴I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

  ¹⁵For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News.

  ¹⁶I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.

• Gospel

  Matthew 13:10–23

  Show the text

  ¹⁰The disciples came, and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

  ¹¹He answered them, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them.

  ¹²For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever doesn’t have, from him will be taken away even that which he has.

  ¹³Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don’t see, and hearing, they don’t hear, neither do they understand.

  ¹⁴In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, ‘By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive:

  ¹⁵for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again; and I would heal them.’

  ¹⁶“But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.

  ¹⁷For most certainly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn’t see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn’t hear them.

  ¹⁸“Hear, then, the parable of the farmer.

  ¹⁹When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.

  ²⁰What was sown on the rocky places, this is he who hears the word, and immediately with joy receives it;

  ²¹yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. When oppression or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

  ²²What was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

  ²³What was sown on the good ground, this is he who hears the word, and understands it, who most certainly bears fruit, and produces, some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.”

• Gospel · Apostles

  Mark 3:13–19

  Show the text

  ¹³He went up into the mountain, and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him.

  ¹⁴He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach,

  ¹⁵and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:

  ¹⁶Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);

  ¹⁷James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder);

  ¹⁸Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot;

  ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, Julian calendar. Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Morning prayer of St Macarius the Great