The Third Sunday After Pentecost

Tomorrow is the third Sunday after Pentecost. On it we commemorate the memory of the Apostle Hermas of the Seventy. Here is how St Nikolai Velimirovich presents the life of St Hermas:

One of the Seventy, he is mentioned in the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans (16:14). A Greek by birth, he spent a long time in Rome. He was bishop in Philippoupolis, and finished his life a martyr. He compiled the very instructive book `The Shepherd' through revelations from the angels of God. Hermas was a rich man, but fell into extreme poverty through his own sins and those of his sons. A man appeared to him, clad in white and with a staff in his hand, and told him that he was the angel of repentance, sent to him before the end of his life. The angel gave him twelve commandments: 1. To believe in God. 2. To live in simplicity and innocence. 3. To love truth and flee from falsehood. 4. To guard his thoughts in chastity. 5. To learn patience and magnanimity of soul. 6. To know that a good and an evil spirit attend every man. 7. To fear God, but not the devil. 8. To perform every good deed and to restrain himself from every evil one. 9. To pray to God in faith from the depths of his heart, so that his prayer might be heard. 10. To preserve himself from melancholy, the daughter of doubt, and from anger. 11. To try true and false prophecies. 12. To preserve himself from every evil desire.

Online resources:

• Menaion service in Greek and Slavonic.
  
• Octoechos service (tone 2) in Greek, Slavonic, and English.
• Epistle reading: Romans 5: 1-10.
• Gospel reading: Matthew 6: 22-33.
• St John Chrysostom, homily 21 on Matthew.
• Blessed Theophylact, Gospel commentary.
• Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, sermon.
  
• Archbishop Andrei of Rockland, sermon.
• Fr Anthony Phillips, sermon.
• Fr Seraphim Holland, sermon.
  
• Fr George Dimopoulos, sermon.
  
• Fr Anthony Coniaris, sermon.
• The Shepherd of Hermas.