Kontakion – Tone 3
Having received the gift of miracles through divine grace, O saints, you work wonders in the world unceasingly. You remove all of our passions through your invisible surgery, divinely-wise Cyrus and glorious John, for you are truly divine physicians.
Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy
See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers – to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – to give to them and their descendants after them.’
And I spoke to you at that time, saying: ‘I alone am not able to bear you.
The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude.
May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you!
So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.
Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him.
You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.
~Chapter: 1 Verses: 8-11 and Verses: 15-17
Reading from the Book of Saint John
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You.
For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.
Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.
~Chapter: 17 Verses: 1-13
The Gospel of Matthew
The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added.
~Chapter: 6 Verses: 22-33
Homily
In the Egyptian village of Manuphin, in the year 412, woe, famine, and several other evils plagued the local faithful, fear was ever present and the village had a long pagan history of hosting what were believed to be evil spirits. The cries of the faithful reached the ears of Patriarch Theophilus and he wanted to cleanse this place of demons, but he died before this could be accomplished. His prayer was continued by his successor, and in the See of Alexandria, as an honor of this request after death, the Holy Patriarch Cyril began the task of doing so. He prayed and fasted intensely, and had entire monasteries do the same, An angel of the Lord appeared in a vision to the hierarch and commanded the venerable relics of Saints Cyrus and John physicians who were martyred healing the sick, be transferred to Manuphin. His Holiness Patriarch Cyril did as the angel commanded and spent 20 years building a church in Manuphin in the name of the holy martyrs. Today we celebrate the placement of those relics in that church, the answered prayer of Theophilus, and peace to the faithful of Manuphin.
Our readings tell us of the wise men God has favored, the complete and beautiful miracle that is his grace, that he will grant it upon those who serve him in ways not always understood. Two men who became martyrs in the 3rd century, the Patriarch of an Egyptian village in the 4th century, and a Holy Patriarch and Angel of God for the next 20 years certainly never knew in their lifetime they would be forever connected in a place of miracles and healing. 220 years, 7 generations after 2 simple doctors died for their faith, their bones would do all this.
We do not know what God’s plan for our life, earthly body, and the world after we leave are, but we can know that he has already considered all of these matters. Seeking him out and serving him is all that we can do, the rest is as the lilies of the field, beautiful by just being what it was created to be. God will provide what we need when we spend our time becoming what he has asked us to become.
~Elisheva+
