Post-feast of the Exaltation of the Cross; Holy Great-Martyr Euphemia, the All-Famed (303)
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat.
Galatians 4:8-21; Mark 6:45-53
Read Galatians 4:8-21
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the first verses of today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he criticizes his audience’s past idolatry and the fact that they keep turning back to it, as if they wish to again be enslaved after having acquired freedom. We can easily apply verse 9 to ourselves: “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?” We who have been baptized have “died” to our old, sinful selves and have been robed in Christ. We have been born again into a new creation, becoming sons and daughters of God by adoption. How is it that after becoming heirs of the Kingdom of God we can still be like the prodigal son and squander our inheritance? Even after our baptisms, we continue to sin. We turn away from God and pridefully put our wills over His own. However, just like the forgiving father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we can always turn back to God in repentance and share in our heavenly Father’s kingdom. As we continue to celebrate the post-feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and remember Christ’s dying so that we may live, let us also remember our vocation to “die” to our sinful ways of living and “live” in the light of Christ, to walk following His commandments.