The Holy Wonderworker and Equal-to-the-Apostles Abercius, Bishop of Hieropolis (c. 200)
Colossians 4:10-18; Luke 10:1-15
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat
Read Luke 10:1-15
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Brothers and sisters, pray for those who are sent out to labour in the vineyard and are to bring in the harvest. Pray for the religious, for the deacons, the priests, and the bishops of the Church they might always embrace a zeal for the Gospel and for making a path for Our Lord Jesus Christ to enter people’s lives. Pray for renewed vocations and that a desire to bear Christ’s Cross in the world and to profess His Glorious Resurrection to all nations will seize the hearts and minds of those who are the successors to the seventy in today’s Gospel. In this time of struggle for the Catholic Church, pray that Our Lord will send us holy men and women to minister in His Church. Pray most earnestly that we be blessed with holy priests and bishops who exercise the sacramental and teaching ministry of the Church, that they may be faithful teachers of the truth and upholders of all that is godly and righteous. As our Holy Father John Chrysostom writes in his writings On Priesthood:
True teachers know that they serve their neighbour by the likeness of their own life to their own message. They think the truth and speak it to the advantage of those who hear them and give them their assent. They speak as they think, and they live as they think. They offer themselves as an example to the Church, to the disciples whom they have brought to the faith. Being a friend of God and of people, they bear witness by their life to the truth of their words.
Pray for the priests and deacons in your parish today and others that you know. Pray for your bishop today. And may the Lord God grant all of us His servants the grace and the strength to rededicate ourselves every day to the service of His Gospel and His Church.