Sunday March 7 (2/22 old calendar) - 03/07/10

Sunday March 7 (2/22 old calendar)
Matins: Luke 24:36-53 Liturgy: Heb. 4:14–5:6 Mark 8:34-9:1

       Opening of the Relics of Holy Martyrs at the gate of Eugenius at Constantinople. Martyrs Maurice and his son Photinus, and Martyrs Theodore, Philip, and 70 soldiers, at Apamea in Syria. Saints Thalassius, Limnaeus, and Baradates, hermits of Syria. St. Athanasius the confessor of Constantinople. St. Telesphorus, pope of Rome. St. Peter the Stylite of Mt. Athos. Martyr Anthusa and her 12 servants. St. Blaise, Bishop.

Monday March 8 (2/23 old calendar)

       Hieromartyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. Saints John, Antioch, Antoninus, Moses, Zebinas, Polychronius, Moses and Damian, ascetics of the Syrian deserts. St. Alexander, founder of the Order of the Unsleeping Ones. St. Gorgonia, sister of St. Gregory the Theologian. St. Damian of Esphigmenou Skete on Mt. Athos. St. Moses, monk of Byelozersk. St. Polycarp, monk of Briansk. New-Martyr Damian, monk of Mt. Athos, who suffered at Larissa. Martyr Clement. Martyr Thea. Repose of Abbot Nazarius of Valaam (1809).

Tuesday March 9 (2/24 old calendar)

       First and Second Finding of the Precious Head of St. John the Baptist. St. Erasmus of the Kiev Caves. Opening of the Relics of St. Romanus, prince of Uglich.

Wednesday March 10 (2/25 old calendar)

       St. Tarasius, Archbishop of Constantinople. Hieromartyr Reginus, Bishop of the isle of Skopelos. St. Polycarp. Martyr Anthony. Saints Erasmus and Paphnutius, monks. Martyrs Alexander and Hypatius at Marcionopolis. St. Theodore, fool-for-Christ. St. Marcellus, Bishop of Apamea in Syria.

Thursday March 11 (2/26 old calendar)

       St. Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza. St. Sebastian, monk of Poshekhonye. New-Martyr John Calphas ("the Apprentice") at Constantinople. St. Photina the Samaritan Woman and her sisters Anatola, Phota, Photis, Parasceva, and Cyriaca; her sons Photinus and Joses; and Sebastian the Duke, Victor, and Christodulus, martyrs.

Friday March 12 (2/27 old calendar)

       St. Procopius the confessor of Decapolis. St. Titus, presbyter of the Kiev Caves. St. Thalalaeus, hermit of Syria. Martyr Gelasius the Actor of Heliopolis. St. Stephen, monk of Constantinople. St. Titus the Soldier, of the Kiev Caves. St. Pitirim, Bishop of Tambov. Martyr Nesius. Saints Asclepius and James of Syria, monks. St. Timothy of Caesarea, monk. Repose of Archimandrite Photius of the Novgorod Yuriev Monastery (1838). Repose of Monk Anthony of Valaam (1848).

Saturday March 13 (2/28 old calendar)

       St. Basil the Confessor, companion of St. Procopius at Decapolis. Saints Marina, Cyra, and Domnica (Domnina), nuns of Syria. Hieromartyr Proterius, Patriarch of Alexandria. Hieromartyr Nestor, Bishop of Magydos in Pamphilia. Apostles Nymphas and Eubulus. Blessed Nicholas of Salos of Pskov, fool-for-Christ. New-Martyr Kyr-Anna. St. Romanus, desert-dweller of Condat in the Jura Mountains (Gaul). Six Holy Martyrs of Egypt. St. Barsus of Damascus, Bishop Martyr Abercius. St. Shio of Georgia, monk. Repose of Arsenius Matseivich, Metropolitan of Rostov (1772). St. John Cassian the Roman, abbot. (St. John, called Barsanuphius, of Nitria in Egypt. Martyr Theocteristus, abbot of Pelecete Monastery near Prusa. St. Cassian, recluse and faster of the Kiev Caves. St. Meletius, Bishop of Kharkov.

The Third Sunday of Great Lent – Veneration of the Cross

       'Verily, I say unto you, that there be some that stand here, which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power'.
       These words are from today's Gospel. They are addressed to us, but what do they mean? What does it mean, 'to taste of death'? What is it, 'to see the kingdom of God'?
       To taste of death means to suffer from all that entered into the world when death entered into the world. For when Adam and Eve fell, not only did death enter, but also hard work, the pain of childbirth, anguish, depression, stress, worry, disease, old age. And all these things taste of death. Every time that we undergo them, we suffer a part of death, we have a foretaste of death. How then are we to overcome them? How can we avoid 'the taste of death'?
       The answer to this is that death can only be overcome by returning to Eden. For in Adam and Eve's fall, we have all fallen. We have all fallen through Adam and Eve and have all tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of which they tasted. Today's service tells us that we can be restored to the state of mankind before the Fall only by tasting of the Fruit of the New Tree of the New Adam in the New Eden.
       The New Adam is Christ, the New Tree is the Cross, Its Fruit is the Resurrection and the New Eden is the Church, the Resurrected Body of Christ. And we taste of the Fruit of the Resurrection in literally tasting of the Body of the Risen Christ in communion. And this precisely is the meaning of the words in today's Gospel that it is possible 'to see the kingdom of God come with power'. In other words, if we face up to life's difficulties with the Cross of Christ, we shall not taste of death, those difficulties in the light of the resurrecting power of the Cross will no longer hold for us the bitter taste of death.
       And this is the whole difference between the Church which accepts the Cross and the world which rejects the Cross. The world sees all human problems with anguish, for the world is locked in to pessimism, it sees no way out of its difficulties, for it does not have an eternal perspective, the perspective of the Cross. On the other hand the Church sees all the difficulties which we naturally come up against in life as challenges, opportunities to combat evil, temporary difficulties. However long those difficulties may last, at the end, the worst thing that can happen to us is that we shall die. For the Christian, however, to die is to be with Christ and holds no sting, for Christ has overcome death. In the light of the Cross and Its fruit, the Resurrection, death holds no fear for us. The taste of death becomes the taste of life. The Cross and the Resurrection bring life more abundantly. In the light of the Cross and the Resurrection we see the Kingdom, where there is no sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting.
       In the perspective of the Cross and the Resurrection, the perspective of the kingdom of God, of which we have a foretaste even now, all human life with all its problems is but a single passing moment in eternity. And if we look at our lives from this Christian perspective, then indeed, we do not taste of death, for we have already to some small extent seen the kingdom of God.
       Before Thy Cross we bow down, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection we glorify!

From the website – OrthodoxEngland