READING 9
December 22nd/9th, 2002 - Shabbat Tevet 16th, 5763
CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX READINGS
26th Week after Pentecost. Tone 1
Conception of the Mother of God by Saint Anna
Matins: The Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 4
The Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke 24:1-12
Divine Liturgy: The Epistle to the Colossians 3:12 [30th Week]
The Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke 17:12-19 [29th Week]
Saint Anna: The Epistle to the Galatians 4:22-31
The Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke 6:16-21
December 25/9: Saint Spiridon the Wonderworker Bishop of Trimithus
December 29/16: Holy Prophet Haggai
December 30/17: Holy Prophet Daniel; 3 youths in the furnace:
Ananias, Azarius and Misail also called Shadrakh, Meshakh and Abdenego
NOTE: According to the Ancient Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem celebrates the Nativity of the Lord on the 6th/7th of January and is faithful to the Old or Julian calendar. In other parts of the world, some Orthodox Churches have decided to celebrate the birth of Our Saviour according to the New or Gregorian calendar which corresponds today to the civilian calendar.
In Israel, Palestine and Jordan we are used to different calendars. Every day the newspapers show the Gregorian, Jewish and Muslim date. As concerns the Church, we should all pray for the unity of the Body of Christ in Whom time found its fulfillment and brought peace to the world and love to brothers and sisters. And we deeply need this love and care that expand from Jerusalem to the ends of this earth.
THE ORTHODOX READINGS
This week prepares us to the Sunday of the Forefathers, which the Orthodox Church will celebrate next Sunday. Therefore, we recall Saint Anna, the wife of Saint Joachim, who gave birth to the Holy Mother of God [cf. Reading and the Entering of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God into the Temple].
The Gospel reading this Sunday according to the Old Calendar recounts how Jesus passed through the midst of Galilee and entered into a village, and ten men came to his encounter; they were lepers and stayed from afar.
They said to Jesus: "Have mercy on us" and they were obliged to lift up their voices, so they shouted this cry from inside the body, a cry from the soul: "Rakhem alaynu" which is common to both Hebrew and Aramaic, "Eleison" in Greek "Pomiluy" in Slavonic. This cry is permanently addressed to God as a supplication running through the Gospel. It means, as we have already seen, that men expect a sign of
Lovingkindness from God. In Hebrew the word is very expressive and meaningful: "Rakhem" is both "have mercy" and "rekhamim", the bosom, the place of birth, as if this deep sigh to the Most High could reshape a defective nature and recreate it. In the Aramaic version of the Gospel, the Peshitta, "rikham" means "to love".
Jesus said: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
And this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you". [John 15:9-14].
What are these commandments that Jesus has given to His disciples? To show the plentitude of love to each other. In Hebrew, and according to the rabbinical tradition of the Sages, this commandment of love is shortened to the word: AHAVAH, whose numbeical value of all the consonants is 13. They are called in the Jewish tradition the thirteen Middot or Attributes/measures of God. They appear in the following verses:
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