October 23, 2024

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

Fasting

Fast day · Wednesday / Friday

Wednesday and Friday: fast without meat, dairy or eggs. Whether fish is allowed depends on the day's feast — check the church calendar.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not specified
• Oil: allowed
• Wine: 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

• Epistle

  Ephesians 5:25–33

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  ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it;

  ²⁶that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,

  ²⁷that he might present the assembly to himself gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without defect.

  ²⁸Even so husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

  ²⁹For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly;

  ³⁰because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones.

  ³¹“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.”

  ³²This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the assembly.

  ³³Nevertheless each of you must also love his own wife even as himself; and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

• Epistle · St James

  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

  Luke 11:9–13

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  ⁹“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.

  ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

  ¹¹“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

  ¹²Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he?

  ¹³If 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?”

• Gospel · St James

  Matthew 13:54–58

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  ⁵⁴Coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom, and these mighty works?

  ⁵⁵Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?

  ⁵⁶Aren’t all of his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all of these things?”

  ⁵⁷They were offended by him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and in his own house.”

  ⁵⁸He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Trisagion