Epistle Reading: Titus 1:15-2:10
To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled
and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are
defiled.
They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being
abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound
doctrine:
that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in
faith, in love, in patience;
the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior,
not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to
love their children,
to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own
husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
Likewise exhort the young men to be sober-minded,
in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works;
in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility,
sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an
opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.
Exhort servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well
pleasing in all things, not answering back,
not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may
adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.
Gospel Reading: Luke 19:12-28
Therefore He said: "A certain nobleman went into a far country
to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.
"So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten
minas, and said to them, 'Do business till I come.'
"But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him,
saying, 'We will not have this man to reign over us.'
"And so it was that when he returned, having received the
kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money,
to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by
trading.
"Then came the first, saying, 'Master, your mina has earned
ten minas.'
"And he said to him, 'Well done, good servant; because you
were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.'
"And the second came, saying, 'Master, your mina has earned
five minas.'
"Likewise he said to him, 'You also be over five cities.'
"And another came, saying, 'Master, here is your mina, which
I have kept put away in a handkerchief.
'For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You
collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.'
"And he said to him, 'Out of your own mouth I will judge you,
you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I
did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow.
'Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my
coming I might have collected it with interest?'
"And he said to those who stood by, 'Take the mina from him,
and give it to him who has ten minas.'
("But they said to him, 'Master, he has ten minas.')
'For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given;
and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from
him.
'But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to
reign over them, and slay them before me.' "
When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
Saints and Feasts
Our Holy Father Clement, Pope of Rome; Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria; Hermogenes, the Martyr; Afterfeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple; Philoumenos and Christopher the Martyrs
