July 15, 2024

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

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

• Vespers · St Vladimir

  3[1] Kings 8:22–23, 27–30

• Vespers · St Vladimir

  Isaiah 61:10–62:5

• Vespers · St Vladimir

  Isaiah 60:1–16

• Matins Gospel

  John 10:9–16

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  ⁹I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.

  ¹⁰The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

  ¹¹I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

  ¹²He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.

  ¹³The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep.

  ¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;

  ¹⁵even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.

  ¹⁶I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

• Epistle

  Romans 9:18–33

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  ¹⁸So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.

  ¹⁹You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?”

  ²⁰But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

  ²¹Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?

  ²²What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

  ²³and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory,

  ²⁴us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?

  ²⁵As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”

  ²⁶“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ”

  ²⁷Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved;

  ²⁸for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”

  ²⁹As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”

  ³⁰What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith;

  ³¹but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness.

  ³²Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone;

  ³³even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”

• Epistle · St Vladimir

  Galatians 1:11–19

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  ¹¹But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.

  ¹²For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.

  ¹³For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it.

  ¹⁴I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

  ¹⁵But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace

  ¹⁶to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately confer with flesh and blood,

  ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus.

  ¹⁸Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.

  ¹⁹But of the other apostles I saw no one except James, the Lord’s brother.

• Gospel

  Matthew 11:2–15

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  ²Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples

  ³and said to him, “Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?”

  ⁴Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:

  ⁵the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

  ⁶Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”

  ⁷As these went their way, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

  ⁸But what did you go out to see? A man in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.

  ⁹But why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet.

  ¹⁰For this is he, of whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’

  ¹¹Most certainly I tell you, among those who are born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptizer; yet he who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.

  ¹²From the days of John the Baptizer until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

  ¹³For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

  ¹⁴If you are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, who is to come.

  ¹⁵He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

• Gospel · St Vladimir

  John 10:1–9

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  ¹“Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber.

  ²But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

  ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.

  ⁴Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

  ⁵They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.”

  ⁶Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them.

  ⁷Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door.

  ⁸All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them.

  ⁹I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, New Calendar (OCA practice). Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

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