Our Holy Father Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
Nativity Fast.
Божественна Літургія
Troparia and Kontakia
Troparion, Tone 4: The truth of your deeds made you for your flock a rule of faith* and an image of meekness,* a teacher of continence.* And so you gained the heights through humility,* riches through poverty,* father and bishop, Ambrose.* Intercede with Christ, our God,* for the salvation of our souls.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now for ever and ever. Amen.
Kontakion, Tone 2: O thunder of justice, spiritual trumpet,* planter of faith and destroyer of heresies,* servant of the Trinity, great hierarch Ambrose,* forever standing in the company of the angels,* pray without ceasing for all of us.
Prokeimenon, Tone 1
My mouth shall speak wisdom and the meditation of my heart understanding.
verse: Hear these things, all you nations; give ear all you inhabitants of the world. (Psalm 28:4,2)
Epistle
Hebrews 3:5-11, 17-19
Brothers and Sisters, Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.’ As in my anger I swore, ‘They will not enter my rest.’”
But with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Alleluia, Tone 2
verse: The mouth of the just man shall meditate wisdom and his tongue shall speak judgment.
verse: The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps will not falter. (Psalm 36:30,31)
Gospel
Luke 20:27-44
At that time, some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.
Then he said to them, “How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms,
‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”‘
David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?”
Communion Hymn
The just man shall be in everlasting remembrance;* of evil hearsay he shall have no fear.* Alleluia, alleluia,* alleluia. (Psalm 111:6)