Holy Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria (253-60).
Great Fast Day 37. According to liturgical prescriptions, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated today.
Sixth Hour – Isaiah 49:6-10. Vespers – Genesis 31:3-16. Proverbs 21:3-21.
Read Isaiah 49:6-10
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
As we reach the end of the fast, today’s reading gives us a foretaste of what is signified in our Christian celebration of Holy Week and Pascha. When Isaiah announces the words of the Lord, “It is a great thing for you to be called my Servant,” he is expressing the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son that will, in Jesus’ death and resurrection, have a definitive effect on our situation. Jesus is the one who is salvation to the ends of the earth, a light to the nations (that’s what the word ‘Gentiles’ means), and the one who will gathered the dispersed of God’s chosen people Israel.
And how does this happen? It happens through Christ willingly entering a situation in which all the powers of evil, every force that acts contrary to the will and plan of God, is turned against him. He is the one who is “abhorred by the nations,” the one who despises his life the sake of bring life to us. And the consequence of this is amazing – life for us, through the death of the one who is himself life. He frees us from our bonds, and he shows us for what we really are – sons of God, heirs of the kingdom, men and women whose destiny it is to live with God forever. The promise is that we will not thirst nor hunger – the fulfillment of that promise comes through the death and resurrection of Christ. So enter into that mystery in the next two weeks – God wants to reveal his great love to you, and the plan that his love is creating for your life.