Monday 22nd December 2025
Nativity Fast: strict fast
Forefeast of The Nativity of Christ
Today we commemorate:
Great Martyr Anastasia, ‘Deliverer From Bonds’, and her teacher, Martyr Chrysogonus, and with them Martyrs Theodota, Evodias, Eutychianus, and others, who suffered under Diocletian (304).
Hebrews 3:5-11, 17-19; Mark 9:42-10:1
Readings in bold type are those appointed by the Typikon for use at the Liturgy
Hebrews 3:5-11, 17-19
Brothers and sisters, Moses was faithful throughout his house as an attendant, as a witness to what was going to be said, but Christ is over his house as a Son. We are his house if we maintain to the end the assurance and glory of our hope. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you should hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion at the time of the temptation in the wilderness when your ancestors tested me and tried me and saw my works for forty years. That is why I was grieved with that generation and said, “Their hearts are always going astray; they do not know my ways;” and I swore in my wrath, “They shall never enter my rest.”’ … With whom was he grieved for forty years, unless it was with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? To whom did he swear that they should not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? And we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
Mark 9:42-10:1
The Lord said, ‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble would be better off being thrown into the sea with a millstone around the neck. If then your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go to Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame than with two feet to be thrown down to Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God one-eyed than with two eyes to go to the Gehenna of fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt is no longer salty, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.’ He set out from there and came to the region of Judaea beyond the Jordan. Once more the crowds gathered around him, and again he taught them, as was his custom.