Becoming Strengthened in Good: 

On Mid-Pentecost

Archpriest Dmitri Smirnov   

Christ is Risen!

In this world, everything changes: one season of the year replace another; first people are small and later they grow old; people’s moods are sometimes good, sometimes sad, and sometimes completely desperate. Only God is unchanging, for He is eternal and in Him there is no shadow of turning (James 1:17). God is absolute good and love. He wants to bring each one of us, who are created in His image and likeness, into this good regardless of our age, condition of health, or any other external circumstance. This good, in which we would be strengthened, would be eternal. We would enter into eternal life with God.

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh -

SUNDAY OF THE PARALYTIC

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. 

How tragic today's story of the life of Christ is. A man had been paralysed for years. He had lain at a short distance from healing, but he himself had no strength to merge into the waters of ablution. And no one - no one in the course of all these years - had had compassion on him. 

The ones rushed to be the first in order to be healed. Others who were attached to them by love, by friendship, helped them to be healed. But no one cast a glance at this man, who for years had longed for healing and was not in himself able to find strength to become whole.

Synaxarion For the Sunday of the Paralytic

By Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

SUNDAY of THE PARALYTIC

On this day, the fourth Sunday of Pascha, we commemorate the Paralytic and, as is meet, we celebrate the miracle wrought for him.

Verses

The word of Christ was strength for the Paralytic,And thus this word alone was his healing.

The Paralytic and the Paralysis of Egoism

By Fr. Alexander Schmemann

On the third Sunday after Easter, the reading from the gospel of John recounts Christ’s healing of a paralytic. “There was a feast,” writes the Evangelist John, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethsaida, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. (Jn 5:1-9)

The Paralytic's Endurance and the Meaning of Life

Homily For the Sunday of the Paralytic

By Metropolitan Augoustinos Kantiotis

"And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years."(John 5:1-15)

The question is asked, beloved, what is life? Is it enjoyment? Is it amusement? Is it dancing and fun? Is it "let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die"? Many people think this way, especially the young of our times, who are carried away by materialistic and atheistic ideas and think that the few years they are going to live on this planet must be lived as happily and as hedonistically as possible. They have as a kind of motto the Italian phrase dolce vita, which means "sweet life". For them, sweet life means living day and night at various amusement centers, dancing wildly, singing obscene songs, engaging in loud behavior, and taking drugs to achieve a chemical paradise of pleasure for a few hours. Once those hours pass, these unfortunates fall into a terrible state of depression and gloom.

Homily for the Sunday of the Paralytic

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)

Today is a feast day for all of us paralytics. Today, brothers and sisters, we to a certain degree are meeting our name-day, our feast day. Who among us can boast that he is strong, courageous, bearing all the misfortunes of this age, fulfilling all of Christ’s commandments? Deliver us, O Lord, if such a person stands in our midst — one cannot imagine a worse righteous or strong man! The Apostle Paul says: "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor 12:10). But the Apostle did not deprive himself of one thing: strong faith and undoubting hope in the Savior. “The power of God is made perfect in weakness!”

Created for Eternal Life

St. Justin Popovic

The following sermon was delivered at the Ćelije convent in 1978 on the Sunday of the Paralytic, which coincided with the feast day of St. John the Theologian

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

In four words is expressed the entire mystery of this (and the other) world, of every person, of the mystery of my being, and of the mystery of your being. If there were no Risen Lord, His Resurrection would not be; and if there were no Risen Lord, we would not be – there would be no Christian in the world.

INSTRUCTION ON THE SUNDAY OF THE PARALYTIC

Christ is Risen!

The holy Evangelist John the Theologian tells us that in Jerusalem, by the Sheep’s gate is a pool, before which there were five closed entrances where a multitude of the sick lay. At times an Angel of the Lord would descend into the pool and trouble the waters, and whoever would first step into those waters would be healed (Jn. 5:2–4). Passing through towns and villages, revealing to people the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, Christ came one day to the Sheep’s pool. He saw there those sick people who desired healing. Among them was a man who suffered from an infirmity for thirty-eight years. Christ came to him and asked, "Do you want to be made whole?" (cf. Jn. 5:6). The sick man answered, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Christ said to him, "Take up your bed and walk," and the sick man was immediately healed (cf. Jn. 5:7–9). After some time Jesus Christ met him in the temple and said, "See, you have been made healthy. Sin no more, lest a worse thing should come upon you" (cf. Jn. 5:14).

ON THE WEDNESDAY OF MIDPENTECOST

Liturgical  Services

SUNDAY OF THE PARALYSED MAN

Liturgical   Services

Fourth Sunday of Pascha
Healing of the Paralytic

John 5:1-15

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. John

by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

Fourth Sunday After Pascha:

 Feast Of The Sunday Of The Paralytic

Introduction

The third Sunday after the Feast of Holy Pascha is observed by the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Paralytic. The day commemorates the miracle of Christ healing a man who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. The biblical story of the event is found in the Gospel of John 5:1-15.

Background

Icon of the Healing of the Paralytic, used with permission from Theologic

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Gospel of John, 

3. Saturday after Pasha, 

John 15:17-16.2

These things I command you, that you love one another.John 15:17

That is, It is not to upbraid, that I tell you that I lay down My life for you, or that I ran to meet you, but in order to lead you into friendship. Then, since the being persecuted and insulted by the many, was a grievous and intolerable thing, and enough to humble even a lofty soul, therefore, after having said ten thousand things first, Christ entered upon this matter. Having first smoothed their minds, He thus proceeds to these points, showing that these things too were for their exceeding advantage, as He had also shown that the others were. For as He had told them that they ought not to grieve, but rather to rejoice, because I go to the Father, (since He did this not as deserting but as greatly loving them,) so here also He shows that they ought to rejoice, not grieve. And observe how He effects this. He said not, I know that the action is grievous, but bear for My sake, since for My sake also ye suffer, for this reason was not yet sufficient to console them; wherefore letting this pass, He puts forward another. And what is that? It is that this thing would be a sure proof of their former virtue. And, on the contrary, you ought to grieve, not because you are hated now but if you were likely to be loved; for this He implies by saying,

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homily 45, 47. 

on the Gospel of John, 

3. Friday after Pasha, 

John 6:48-54

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 

3. Saturday after Pasha

 Acts 9:20-31

And he was with the disciples which were at Damascus certain days. And straightway in the synagogues he preached Jesus, that He is the Son of God. Acts 9:20 See, straightway he was a teacher in the synagogues. He was not ashamed of the change, was not afraid while the very things in which he was glorious afore-time, the same he destroyed. Even from his first appearance on the stage here was a man, death-dealing, ready for deeds of blood: do you see what a manifest sign (was here)?

 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 

3. Friday after Pasha,

Acts 8:40-9:19

And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. ch. 9:1-2

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Gospel of John, 

3. Thursday after Pasha, 

Jn.6.40-44

And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which sees the Son, and believes in Him, may have everlasting life. John 6:40

Is not then this Your will? And how sayest Thou, I have come to send fire upon the earth, and what have I desired to see, if that be already kindled? Luke 12:49 For if Thou also desirest this, it is very clear that Your will and the Father's is one. In another place also He says, For as the Father raises up the dead and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. John 5:21

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 

3. Thursday after Pasha

Acts VIII. 26-39 

Acts VIII. 26, 27

And the Angel of the Lord spoke unto Philip, saying, arise and go toward the south unto the way that goes down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went.

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Gospel of John, 

6. 35-39

3. Wednesday after Pasha, 

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homily 18 on the Acts of the Apostles,

 3. Wednesday after Pasha, 

Monthly Lectionaries of Daily Readings for 2013. 

St. Theophan the Recluse on Mid-Pentecost

By St. Theophan the Recluse

On Mid-Pentecost we hear the call of the Lord: "Whosoever thirsteth, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37). If this is so, then let us all run to Him. Whatever you thirst for - so long as it is not contrary to the spirit of the Lord - you will find relief in Him. If you thirst for knowledge, run to the Lord, for He is the one and only light, enlightening every man. If you thirst for cleansing from sin and quenching of the flames of your conscience, run to the Lord, for He tore asunder the handwriting of our sins upon the Cross. If you thirst for peace in your heart, run to the Lord, for He is the treasury of all good, Whose abundance will teach you to forget all deprivations and despise all earthly good, so as to be filled with Him alone. If you need strength, He is almighty. If you need glory, His glory surpasses the world. If you desire freedom, He gives true freedom. He will resolve all of our doubts, loose the bonds of our passions, dispel all our troubles and difficulties, will enable us to overcome all obstacles, temptations and intrigues of the enemy, and will make smooth the path of our spiritual life. Let us all run to the Lord!

The Feast of Mid-Pentecost

By Sergei V. Bulgakov

On Wednesday of the fourth week we celebrate the Mid-Feast of Pentecost, i.e. half of the period from Pascha to Pentecost. This day we commemorate that event from the life of the Savior, when He on the Midfeast of the Tabernacles taught in the temple about His Own Divine ministry and the mystery of water, under which we understand the beneficial teaching of Christ and the beneficial gifts of the Holy Spirit 

(1). The Mid-feast of Holy Pentecost is referred to among the ancient Christian feasts. If its beginning cannot be seen in the canons of the Apostolic and Antiochian Councils concerning the assembly of local councils during the fourth week of Pentecost, then in the time of St. John Chrysostom it is already existing and established by the Holy Church. 

The Feast of Mid-Pentecost and the Pentecostarion

The fifty days following Pascha until the Feast of Pentecost are known as the period of the Pentecostarion in the Orthodox Church. At the mid-point between these great feasts of Pascha and Pentecost, on the twenty-fifth day which is always a Wedneday, is one of the most beloved feasts for the most devout Orthodox Christians known quit simply as Mid-Pentecost. Mid-Pentecost is to the Pentecostarion what the Third Sunday of Great Lent which honors the Holy Cross is to the period of Great Lent. It is a day which helps us focus on the central theme of the entire period. Whereas the mid-point of Great Lent reminds us to bear up the Cross of Christ bravely so that we may daily die with Christ in order to experience the Resurrection of our Lord, so also the mid-point of the Pentecostarion enlightens us regarding the theme of the fifty days following Pascha - which is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit poured out as a gift upon all the faithful who partake of the living water which is Christ Himself.

Synaxarion For the Wednesday of Mid-Pentecost

By Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

On the Wednesday of Mid-Pentecost, we commemorate the words of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the provenance of His teaching and His Divine origin, whereby He proved that He was the Messiah, and the Mediator and Reconciler of us and the eternal Father.

Verses

Standing in the midst of the teachers,

Christ the Messiah teacheth at Mid-feast.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 44,45 on the Gospel of John

3. Monday after Pasha

John 6:26-33

John 6:26-27

Jesus answered them, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life.

Pasha, St. John Chrysostom

Homily 18 on the Acts of the Apostles

 3.  Tuesday after Pasha

As for Saul, he made havoc of the Church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison. Acts 8:3

Great was his frenzy: that he was alone, that he even entered into houses: for indeed he was ready to give his life for the Law. Haling, it says, men and women:mark both the confidence, and the violence, and the frenzy. All that fell into his hands, he put to all manner of ill-treatment: for in consequence of the recent murder, he was become more daring.Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.

Third Sunday After Pascha: 

Feast Of The Holy Myrrhbearers

Introduction

The third Sunday after the Feast of Holy Pascha is observed by the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearers. The day commemorates when the women disciples of our Lord came to the tomb to anoint his body with myrrh-oils but found the tomb empty. As the woman wondered what this meant, angels appeared proclaiming that Christ had risen from the dead.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 15 on the Acts of the Apostles 

3. Monday after Pasha (Acts VI. 7-8; 7.47-60)

Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

Archbishop Savva (Raevsky)

Christ is Risen!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord! 

Today is dedicated to the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women. This is a great feast day for everyone, but especially for women, Christian women, who like the Myrrh-Bearers sacrifice their time and labor and resources, that is, all they have, for the good of the Church and their neighbor.

The Fidelity and Love of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

Metropolitan Philaret of Eastern American and New York 

Today the Holy Orthodox Church, as you know, glorifies the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women, for which reason this Sunday is called the “Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women.”

Yesterday we already spoke of how the Myrrh-Bearing Women were, in essence, the first heralds of Christ’s Resurrection and, in a certain sense, as one Russian holy hierarch put it, the Apostles to the Apostles themselves.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 14 on the Acts of the Apostles

Acts VI. 1-7

Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Come Follow Me

Matthew 4:18-23

All-Conquering Love 

Bishop Alexander (Mileant)

And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalane, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome,

had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him.

And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.

Sunday of the Myrhh-Bearing Women.

SAINT JOHN THE THEOLOGIAN, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST

Commemorated May 8/21, June 20/July 3, September 26/October 9

Апостол Иоанн Богослов

The Apostle and Evangelist St. John, called the Theologian, was the son of Salome and Zebedee. Zebedee was a fisherman of Galilee who possessed rather vast holdings with workers. He was a member of some importance in the Jewish community, having access to the high priest. John's mother Salome is mentioned as being one of the ranks of women who served God with their possessions.

John was at first the disciple of St. John the Baptist. Listening to his witness of Christ as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, he, together with Andrew the First-Called, followed the Saviour. Being a steadfast disciple of the Lord, he and his brother James were called by the Lord Himself at a later time after a successful catch of fish in the sea of Galilee. Together with Peter and James, John was deigned worthy to become close to the Lord, being with Him during the most important and triumphant times of His earthly life. Thus, he was worthy to be present at the resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, to see Christ's transfiguration on Mount Tabor, to hear the discourse on the signs of His second coming, and to witness to His prayer at Gethsemane. At the Last Supper he was so close to the Lord that in his own words, he lay his head upon Christ's bosom, whence originated his name "bosom-friend," which has since become a name for someone who is especially close.

The Diligence and Love of the Myrrhbearing Women

The diligence of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women is truly great and their fervent love for the Lord is constant. Free from every earthly predilection their hearts lived and breathed only for the Lord: all their thoughts, desires and hope were concentrated in Him and all their blessings and treasure consisted in Him. For the sake of their beloved Teacher they willingly leave their homes, their close and known relatives, forget the weakness of their gender, are not frightened by the cruelty of the numerous enemies of the Lord, steadily follow Him everywhere, long-sufferingly pass through the cities and villages with Him and minister to Him from their means. They do not abandon their beloved Teacher during His suffering and His death.

The Myrrhbearing Women and the Christian Women of Today

By Elder Sofian (Boaghiu)

 

As you know, the third Sunday after Easter is the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing women, or the Sunday of the faithful and the housewives who maintain the Christian family in this world. You should be happy that you partake of this special attention from our Resurrected Lord. And behold, because through our most pure Mother Theotokos and the Holy Myrrh-bearing women, you have a Sunday a year, when you are especially honored. May the Lord multiply in you the grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit and may the gift of Christian love abide truly with you, in order to be what you are called, maintainers of Christian’  warmth and harmony in your family. For many families today are met with disaster… as you know better than me, so I will not speak about it.

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

Liturgical  Services

The Holy Myrrhbearers and Contemporary Christian Women

by S. V. Bulgakov

The diligence of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women is truly great and their fervent love for the Lord is constant. Free from every earthly predilection their hearts lived and breathed only for the Lord: all their thoughts, desires and hope were concentrated in Him and all their blessings and treasure consisted in Him. For the sake of their beloved Teacher they willingly leave their homes, their close and known relatives, forget the weakness of their gender, are not frightened by the cruelty of the numerous enemies of the Lord, steadily follow Him everywhere, long-sufferingly pass through the cities and villages with Him and minister to Him from their means.

Akathist to the Lifebearing Tomb of Christ

Kontakion 1

To the chosen Champion Leader risen from the dead, a hymn of victory do we sing unto Thee, O Christ Eternal King, for Thou hast risen from the tomb: and we being delivered from everlasting corruption, bring joyous acclamations unto Thine honorable tomb crying out:

Rejoice, life-bearing tomb whence Christ hath risen!

Synaxarion For the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers

Synaxarion For the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers

By Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos

SUNDAY of THE MYRRH-BEARERS

On this day, the third Sunday of Pascha, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing women; and we also commemorate Joseph of Arimathæa, who was a secret disciple, and also Nicodemos, who was a disciple by night.

Verses

The women disciples bring myrrh unto Christ.
And I bring a hymn as it were myrrh unto them?

Homily For the Sunday of The Myrrhbearing Women

by Saint Gregory Palamas

The resurrection of the Lord is the regeneration of human nature. It is the resuscitation and re-creation of the first Adam, whom sin led to death, and who because of death, again was made to retrace his steps on the earth from which he was made. The resurrection is the return to immortal life. Whereas no one saw that first man when he was created and given life—because no man existed yet at that time—woman was the first person to see him after he had received the breath of life by divine inbreathing. For after him, Eve was the first human being. Likewise no one saw the second Adam, who is the Lord, rise from the dead, for none of his followers were near by and the soldiers guarding the tomb were so shaken that they were like dead men. Following the resurrection, however, it was a woman who saw Him first before the others, as we have heard from Saint Mark’s Gospel today. "After his resurrection Jesus appeared on the morning of the Lord’s Day [Sunday] to Mary Magdalene first."

Saint Theophylact of Ochrid

Third Sunday of Pascha

The Myrrh-bearing Women

Mark 15:43-16:6

St. John Chrysostom 

Homily 43,44 on the Gospel of John 

John 6:16-27

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 13 on the Acts of the Apostles

Acts 5:19-33

Imprisonment and Release

     Then having risen up, the high-priest and they that were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees) were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the Apostles, and put them in the common prison.

     Having risen up, that is, being roused, being excited at the things taking place, the high-priest and they which were with him (which is the sect of the Sadducees) were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the Apostles: they now assault them more vigorously: and put them in the common prison; but did not immediately bring them to trial, because they expected them again to be softened down. But the Angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught. Acts 5:19-21

St. John Chrysostom

Homilies 40,41,42. on the Gospel of John

5.30-6.2

Bible Timeline

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 12 on the Acts of the Apostles

Acts 5. 1-132

And Joses, who by the Apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the Apostles' feet.

Would You Like to Be a Prophet?

Bishop John of Worcester and New England

A prophet is one who speaks for God. Because of the Resurrection, because we are Christians, because in our baptisms we put on Christ, we are already prophets. It is our vocation as Christians to incarnate the Divine Logos, the Word of God. It is our sacred duty to reclaim the space we live in and to reveal God to the world. It is our life to witness to the good news and share it with all of God’s creation. It is our life to speak Truth and witness to God in His world. It is our job to speak to the world, revealing what God teaches, wants, and is.

The Joyful Sorrow of Pascha 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos 

One of the strongest and most expressive words encountered in our tradition is the word "joyful-sorrow" (χαρμολύπη). All things in our life are mixed with sorrow and joy. Life is not a theater with scenery changes, but an experience that is both joyful and sorrowful, where sorrow turns to joy and at the point where joy culminates, sorrow emerges, due to the mortality of our passionate nature. 

The First and Second Resurrection

 By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

 

The Resurrection of Christ, which we festively celebrate after several days of fasting, repentance and prayer, is the central mystery of faith and the life in Christ. Without the Resurrection of Christ we would be under the power of death, sin and the devil and there would be no way out of life. That's why the Apostle Paul declares: "If Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we remain in our sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). Christ by His Resurrection gave Grace to us to be spiritually resurrected in this life, as well as bodily at the Second Coming of Christ, as we confess in our Symbol of Faith: "I expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the future age." 

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homily 39, 40. on the Gospel of John, 

2. Sunday after Pasha

John 5:17-24

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, 

4. 13-22

Peter and John Threatened, Released

The Importance of Faith in the Afterlife: On Radonitsa

Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) 

There is no man that liveth and sineth not.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Christ is Risen!

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, one of the main questions of great importance for each and everyone is that of the afterlife. Both those who are religious and those who are indifferent to religion ponder this question. Everyone is taken up by the question of how we are going to live after our death. We believers know that there is and will be a future life, but how it will take shape and what this new life will be – all these details have not been given us to know; they are hidden from us. Nonetheless, the word of God truthfully confirms that there is a future life.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 27, 28,29 on the Gospel of John

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 10 on the Acts of the Apostles

Acts IV. 1

And as they spoke unto the people, there came unto them the priests, and the captain of the temple.

Tuesday of St. Thomas: 

Radonitsa (Day of Rejoicing)

By Sergei V. Bulgakov

Radonitsa ("Day of Rejoicing") is a holiday in the Orthodox Church which falls on the Monday or (more commonly) Tuesday of Saint Thomas Week—eight or nine days, respectively, after Pascha (Easter). The day is a general memorial for the departed.

On Thomas Monday, in some places on Tuesday, the commemoration of the departed is done. Actually in the service of these days according to the Ustav [Typikon] the special prayers for the departed are not prescribed and the commemoration on these days is done according to the pious custom of the Russian Church. The basis for this commemoration of the departed, on the other hand, serves to commemorate the descent of Jesus Christ into Hades, tied not only to Thomas Sunday but also for another reason, is the decision of the church Ustav [Typikon] to do the usual commemoration of the departed, beginning with Thomas Monday. Under this decision the faithful come to the graves of their relatives with the joyful news about the resurrection of Christ. From here also the very day of commemoration is called Radonitsa [Day of Rejoicing]1.

St. John Chrysostom's Homily On the Cemetery and the Cross (Excerpts)

On Tuesday of St. Thomas week we remember those Orthodox Christians from all ages who have died in faith, and in the hope of resurrection. In the Slavic Churches this day is known as Radonitsa.

One remarkable sermon that has yet to be translated into the English language is a homily by St. John Chrysostom which bears the curious name, "On the Cemetery's Name and the Cross." The actual title of the sermon could be something like, "Why A Cemetery Is Named Thus." This homily is traditionally read during the services for the Tuesday of St. Thomas because it was originally delivered on this day. In this particular homily, Saint John explains why the place where we bury our brothers and sisters who have reposed is called a cemetery, a place of sleep, a dormitory, (koimêtêrion in Greek), and not as it was formerly, a necropolis, that is, a city of the dead, or a graveyard.

The Risen Christ, A Test of Logic

By Photios Kontoglou

A Christian's faith is tested with the Resurrection of Christ as gold in the furnace. Of the entire Gospel, the Resurrection of Christ is the most unbelievable thing, totally incomprehensible logically, a true torture for it. But because it is a thing altogether incredible, this is why our whole faith is needed to believe it. We humans often say that we have faith, but we only have it for what is believed by the mind. But then there is no need for faith, since logic is enough. Belief is needed for the unbelievable.

The Mystical Resurrection of Christ

The following discourse is from the catecheses of St. Symeon the New Theologian to the monks of the Monastery of St. Mamas, where he served as Abbot. It is translated from the Greek edition by Archbishop Basil Krivoshein, Syméon le Nouveau Théologien,Catéchèses, Vol. II, Discourse 13, (Sources Chrétiennes, No. 104; Paris: Cerf, 1964), pp. 191-202.

Concerning the Resurrection of Christ: In what it consists, or how Christ’s resurrection takes place in us, and in it the resurrection of the soul. The mystery of this Resurrection. Delivered on the Monday of the second week of Pascha.

THE BASICS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE, 

BASED ON THE WRITINGS OF ST. IGNATIUS (BRIANCHANINOV)

Part I

For the commemoration of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, 

The essence of any religion is contained in the spiritual life, which is its most sacred side. Any entrance into this life demands not only zeal, but also knowledge of the laws of spiritual life. Zeal not according to knowledge is a poor helper, as we know. Vague, indistinct conceptions of this main side of religious life lead the Christian, and especially the ascetic, to grievous consequences; in the best case to fruitless labors, but more often to self-opinion and spiritual, moral, and psychological illness.

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 21 and 22 on the Gospel of John

John 2:1-11

St. John Chrysostom

Homily 9 on the Acts of the Apostles 

Acts III. 12

The Explanation of the Gospel of  St. John, 

St. John Chrysostom, 

Homily 86, 87 

The Second Sunday of Pascha - Thomas Sunday