--- title: "December 18, 2023 — St Sabbas the Sanctified" description: "Monday, December 18, 2023. 5 December (Old Style). St Sabbas the Sanctified. Fast day" url: "https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2023-12-18" language: "en" --- Monday # December 18, 2023 5 December (Old Style) · 29th week after Pentecost Russian Orthodox Church (Old Calendar) [Old Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2023-12-18) [New Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2023-12-18) [Month calendar](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2023-12) [← December 17](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2023-12-17) [December 19 →](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2023-12-19) ## Events of the day - St Sabbas the Sanctified Polyeleos rank ## Fasting Fast day · Nativity Fast Nativity Fast, Monday: cooked food without oil. - Meat: not allowed - Dairy & eggs: not allowed - Fish: not allowed - Oil: not allowed - Wine: not allowed 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 - Vespers Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9 - Vespers Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3 - Vespers Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15 - Matins Gospel Luke 6:17–23 **Show the text** 17 He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; 18 as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed. 19 All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all. 20 He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets. - Epistle Hebrews 3:5–11, 17–19 **Show the text** 5 Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, 6 but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. 7 Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, 8 don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years. 10 Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ” 17 With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief. - Epistle · St Sabbas Galatians 5:22–6:2 **Show the text** 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another. 1 Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. - Gospel Luke 20:27–44 **Show the text** 27 Some of the Sadducees came to him, those who deny that there is a resurrection. 28 They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up children for his brother. 29 There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless. 30 The second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.” 34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.” 39 Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you speak well.” 40 They didn’t dare to ask him any more questions. 41 He said to them, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42 David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 43 until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” ’ 44 “David therefore calls him Lord, so how is he his son?” - Gospel · St Sabas Matthew 11:27–30 **Show the text** 27 All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him. 28 “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 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](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/prayers/morning-macarius)