Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Tuesday, 28 September 2010. Commemoration of our Holy Father Chariton the Confessor.

Prokeimenon
Psalms 64:10,1 (Tone 7)
Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him. Let all the upright in heart glory.
Stichon: Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint; preserve my life from the dread enemy. (NRSV)

Epistle of the Divine Liturgy
Philippians 1:8-14 (19 after Pentecost)
Brothers and sisters, God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear. (NRSV)

Alleluia verse
Psalms 92:12,13 (Tone 2)
The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Stichon: They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. (NRSV)

Gospel of the Divine Liturgy
Luke 5:12-16 (2 after Holy Cross)
At that time, when Jesus was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, ‘Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one. ‘Go’, he said, ‘and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.’ But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray. (NRSV)

Synaxarion of the Day (story of the feast or commemoration)
Saint Chariton was born in Iconium in the eparchy of Lycaonia. Under Emperor Diocletian he was summoned before the consul's tribunal which, by the strength of his word, convicted him of error by his courageous confession of Christ. Four men stretched him out on the ground, struck him, and tortured him with fire. Delivered from prison, he took refuge in Egypt. After the liberating edict of Constantine the Great in 313, he went to Palestine and there converted a grotto into a church in a place called Pharan in order to practice the ascetic life there (330). But soon he had to leave this place to flee from the multitudes who were coming to him, and to withdraw to Doucas mountain in the grottos around Jericho (340). Seeing that a great number of monks were gathering around him, he built a third laura, near the place called Thecoa, in Syriac "Souka", or "monastery". It is also called "The Ancient Laura" or "the Laura of Saint Chariton". Before dying, the Saint returned to Pharan and there committed his soul in peace in 350.


Class of Feast: 5
Tone of Week: 1