January 13translatedThis page has been translated from Serbian to English. It may contain minor phrasing or syntactic issues.
The Lives of the Saints
1. HOLY MARTYRS HERMYLUS AND STRATONICUS
Emperor Licinius raised a great persecution against Christians. Saint Hermylus, a Christian and a deacon at a certain church, was seized and brought to trial. When they told him that they were leading him to torture, he rejoiced greatly. In vain the emperor threatened him; Hermylus freely confessed his faith in Christ and replied to the emperor to all his threats: "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Psalm 117:6). After severe torments they threw Hermylus into the dungeon. And the jailer was Stratonicus, a secret Christian, who with all his heart sympathized with Hermylus's sufferings. When they also brought Stratonicus before the emperor as a Christian, the emperor decreed that both should be drowned in the Danube. Then they bound Hermylus and Stratonicus in one net and drowned them in the Danube. After three days the water cast their bodies onto the shore and Christians found them and buried them eighteen stadia from Belgrade. These glorious martyrs suffered for Christ and were glorified in the year 315.
2. SAINT JAMES, BISHOP OF NISIBIS
As a hermit he lived in summer in the open field, and in winter in a cave. Once he came down to the city of Nisibis, to see how the Christian faith was prospering and how Christians were living. But there he was elected bishop. He participated in the First Ecumenical Council and defended Orthodoxy from the heresy of Arius. It happened once that the impious Persians attacked Nisibis with an army. Saint James with a procession went out to the city ramparts, and himself climbed upon the rampart and walked along the ramparts, not fearing the enemy arrows that were aimed at him. Walking thus, the saint prayed to God that God would preserve the city and the faithful in this manner: by sending flies and gnats upon the Persians, and thereby drive them away from the walls of the city of Nisibis. He did not, therefore, ask for death to the enemies nor any kind of destruction and defeat, but only a small annoyance that would drive them away from there. And God heard the prayer of His beloved one and sent many flies and gnats upon the Persians, and drove them away and saved the city of Nisibis. Saint James lived long and honorably, and peacefully ended his life in deep old age, in the year 350.
3. VENERABLE MAXIMUS KAUSOKALYVIA
In the fourteenth century he practiced asceticism as a monk on the Holy Mountain in his own peculiar way; namely, he pretended to be somewhat foolish and constantly changed his dwelling place. And his dwelling place was a hut made of branches. One hut after another he built and burned, for which reason he was called Kausokalyvia, that is, Hut-Burner. He was considered a madman until Saint Gregory of Sinai came to the Holy Mountain, who in Maximus discovered a unique ascetic, a wonder-working man of prayer and "an angel in the flesh." He presented himself to the Lord in the year 1320.
Hymn of Praise
Prayer in the heart like the heart beating, Prayer in the heart with breathing together, Interior prayer, that light within, On Athos was revealed by Maximus. Like a spirit without body Maximus rose, From prayer he shone entirely with light; From prayer he was filled with joy From prayer he was filled with satisfaction, Through prayer he saw heaven revealed, Through prayer—human being glorified, Through prayer he felt the nearness of Christ, Openly to him appeared the All-Holy One. Maximus's soul was satisfied with heaven, Gregory of Sinai once asked him: "Righteous Maximus, tell me whence you know, That you have visions of good and not evil? And that all this is not demonic delusion And false deception, satanic illusion?" "From this," he said, "I know that these are not lies, That these visions soothe my spirit and body, That my soul always yearns for them That from the sign of the cross they will not vanish, By the sweet joy I know it is no delusion, By the gentle joy that warms all of me."
Reflection
A good deed with silence is worth more than a good deed with explanation, and incomparably more than the most eloquent explanation without a good deed. From Saint Nicholas of Myra no words have remained, but deeds have remained. Without any explanations he came three times by night to the house of a certain poor man and secretly threw through the window a purse of gold each time. A certain elder in the Egyptian Scetis fell gravely ill, and desired to eat a little fresh bread (for the bread that the monks then ate was dried in the sun and lasted for months). Hearing this, one of the monks said nothing but went out and traveled far to a certain city from which he brought fresh bread to the sick elder. Learning of that monk's labor, the elder would not eat the bread, saying: this is the brother's blood! (that is, the brother delivered it with suffering). Then the other monks implored the elder to eat, telling him not to despise the brother's sacrifice. What explanations and what words about brotherly love can replace this simple and silent deed of brotherly love?
Contemplation
Contemplate the hunger and thirst of the Lord Jesus for righteousness, namely: 1. How He comes into the world to restore trampled righteousness; 2. How He proclaims God's righteousness and exposes unrighteousness; 3. How He urgently performs countless deeds of righteousness, to leave us an example.
Homily
on the Kingdom of God, which is within
The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)
Everything that is of God bears the seal of immortality. And the Kingdom of God is an immortal kingdom. If we wish, therefore, to breathe the air of immortality, we must enter within ourselves, into our heart, into the Kingdom of God. Outside us is the air of time, the air of transience and decay, in which the soul breathes with difficulty. The kingdom of nature is a kingdom of the senses, hence a kingdom of foreign land in comparison with our soul, which represents our inner kingdom. Why do people love to occupy themselves long, long in foreign lands? Why do they rarely and reluctantly enter their own house? Whenever we think about everything, we think about foreign lands. Whenever we converse about the sensory world, we converse in foreign lands. Living by the senses, we are like a man who rushes about other people's houses all day, and only returns in the evening to his own house to sleep. And so our waking hours we dedicate to death, and sleep to immortality! We come to ourselves, we return to ourselves only in sleep! But even our sleep dreams our waking life, that is, even when we are in our own house in an unconscious state, we dream of other people's houses: our dreams are sensory, because our waking life is sensory. And so we are in a foreign land, and strangers both in waking and in sleep. We are constantly outside ourselves. But the Lord wants to return us to ourselves, to our own home and our own homeland. For us the Kingdom of God is within us: outside us is foreign land. In order to escape from foreign lands and find our true home, in which we meet God directly, we must enter into ourselves, into our heart. There is the King, and there is the kingdom.
O Lord and King of angels and saints, show us the richness and splendor of Your kingdom within us. That we may love Your kingdom more than we love the sensory foreign land, the kingdom of changeability and transience. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.