🕂 Our Venerable Mother Josaphata Hordashevska; The Venerable Father Gregory of Decapolis; Our Holy Father Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople; Blessed Hieromartyr Josaphat Kotsylovsky, Bishop of Peremyshl.
Polyeleos Feast. Pre-feast of the Entrance into the Temple of the Mother of God. A day when the faithful are highly encouraged to participate in the Divine Liturgy. Nativity Fast.
Galatians 3:23-29; Matthew 25:1-13.
Read Matthew 25:1-13
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Church Fathers remind us: God does not condemn wealth, but withering indifference.
In the East we see St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil. The former notes that the rich man is not charged with theft or bloodshed, only with a life of lavishness and lack of love. His fault? He saw Lazarus and refused to care. For the latter, St. Basil, he speaks with sharp clarity: the bread you hoard belongs to the hungry; the cloak in your closet, to the cold. The rich man’s overflowing table becomes his tribunal. Even the stray dogs show more pity than he.
In the West, we have St. Augustine who observes that the poor man is given a name, while the rich man remains nameless. God remembers those the world overlooks. In life, the rich man had a gate to bar the beggar; in death, a great chasm bars him from mercy. Also, St. Gregory the Great gives a grave warning: after death, repentance has no season. The gulf between heaven and hell is not mere geography—it is the settled shape of a soul that chose comfort over compassion.
This parable is no ghost tale to haunt us; it is a mirror to sober us. Today, Lazarus lies at our threshold—in the unborn, the elderly, the single mother, the persecuted Christian, the unnoticed parishioner, the poor and hungry person on the street.
While there is still breath, let us bridge the chasm—by opening our doors, our closets, and our hearts—to meet Christ in Lazarus, before we meet Lazarus in Christ.