September 3 / August 21
1. The Holy Apostle Thaddaeus of the Seventy
This Thaddaeus was one of the Seventy, but was not the Thaddaeus who was one of the Twelve Apostles. St. Thaddaeus first encountered John the Baptist and received baptism from him; then he found the Lord Jesus and followed Him. The Lord numbered him among the Seventy Lesser Apostles, whom He sent out two by two before His face (Luke 10:1). After His glorious Resurrection and His Ascension, the Lord sent Thaddaeus to Edessa, Thaddaeus’s birthplace, according to the promise He gave to Prince Abgar when He returned Abgar’s towel with the image of His face on it (the Icon of the Lord “Not Made With Hands,” August 16). By kissing the towel, Abgar was healed of leprosy, but not completely. When St. Thaddaeus appeared to Abgar, he received him with great joy. The apostle of Christ instructed him in the true Faith, and after that baptized him. When Abgar arose out of the baptismal water, he was completely healed. Glorifying God, Prince Abgar also determined that his people should know the true God and glorify Him. The prince assembled all the citizens of Edessa before the Holy Apostle Thaddaeus to hear his teaching about Christ. Hearing the words of the apostle and seeing their prince miraculously healed, the people rejected their former idolatry and unclean living, embraced the Christian Faith, and were baptized. Thus the city of Edessa was illumined by the Christian Faith. Prince Abgar brought much gold and offered it to the apostle, but Thaddaeus said to him: “Since we left our own gold, how can we receive the gold of others?” St. Thaddaeus preached the Gospel throughout Syria and Phoenicia. He reposed in the Lord in the Phoenician city of Beirut.
2. The Holy Martyr Bassa and her children: Theognius, Agapius and Pistus (305-311)
Bassa was the wife of an idolatrous pagan priest but was secretly a Christian. She educated her sons in Christianity. Her husband hated her because of her faith and gave her and her sons over to the judge for torture. After harsh tortures, her sons were beheaded (it is believed that this occurred at Edessa, in Macedonia). Bassa was joyful when she saw her sons honorably completing their heroic martyrdoms for Christ; and she, with even great- er eagerness, went from torture to torture. When they threw Bassa into the sea, angels appeared to her and brought her to an island in the Sea of Mar- mara, where she was later beheaded during the rule of Maximian. Thus St. Bassa was made worthy of the Kingdom of Christ in a twofold manner—as a martyr, and as a mother of martyrs.
3. The Venerable Abramius wonderworker of Smolensk (1220), and his disciple St. Ephraim (1238)
Abraham was born in the Russian town of Smolensk, in answer to his parent’s prayers. He entered the monastic life at an early age and gave himself over to austere asceticism, emulating the ancient fathers of the desert. Later he established the Monastery of the Holy Cross near Smolensk. He endured many temptations from demons and men with great patience and thanksgiving to God. During a great drought, Abraham brought forth rain by his prayers. Living fifty years as a monk, Abraham peacefully reposed in the Lord, in about 1220.
4. The Holy Forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are also commemorated on the Sunday of the Forefathers before Nativity, as righteous ones and God-pleasers.
- Avitus, bishop of Clermont (Gaul) (594).
- Sarmean, catholicos of Kartli, Georgia (774).
- Theocleta the Wonderworker, of Asia Minor (840).
- Abramius the Lover of Labor, of the Near Caves in Kiev (13th-14th c.).
- Isaiah of Mt. Athos (14th c.).
- Cornelius, founder of Paleostrov Monastery (Karelia) (1420), and his disciple St. Abramius (15th c.).
- Hieromartyrs Romulus, priest, and the deacons Donatus and Silvanus, and Mar- tyr Venustus (Romania).
- Hermits Noephytus and Meletius of Stanisoara Monastery (Romania) (17th ).
- New Hieromartyr Symeon, bishop of Samokov (Bulgaria) (1737).
- Martha, schemanun of Diveyevo (1829).
- New Hieromartyr Raphael, abbot, of Sisatovac Monastery, Serbia (1941).
- New Hieromartyr Ignatius, hieromonk of Optina Monastery (1942).
- Translation of the relics (1953) of Nectarius, metropolitan of Pentapolis (1920).
HYMN OF PRAISE
Venerable Abraham of Smolensk
A candle burns and clouds of incense rise:
Day and night, Abraham prays.
He loves his neighbors as himself.
St. Abraham’s body is withered
From fasting and prostrations;
His heart trembles from the name of God—
Eternity writes on the pages of time.
Sinners do not fear a sinner,
But they bitterly fear a righteous one.
Sinful men mock Abraham;
The envious censure him.
Mocked and censured, Abraham endures,
And implores God’s mercy for his foes.
Abraham guards his heart—
Kneeling in secret, shedding secret tears.
God does not judge as men judge;
The judgment of man desires to cause harm;
But God desires salvation for all—
The aristocrat and the helpless slave.
St. Abraham sets all his hope on God,
And God glorifies him eternally.
To read the Reflection, Contemplation, and Homily for this day,
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