The requirements of morality and holiness are not temporary or fleeting because they reflect the nature of our Holy God who is eternal. They don't shift with the wishes of culture, but are true across cultures and times and wishes. We do not adapt God's will to our times, but we redeem our times by adapting our wills to his truth.
Day 30 of the Blessed Coptic Month of Abib, may God make it always received, year after year, with reassurance and tranquility, while our sins after forgiven by the tender mercies of our God my fathers and brothers.
Amen.
The Thirtieth Day of the Blessed Month of Abib
Martyrdom of Saints Mercurius and Ephraem
On this day, the two honorable Sts. Mercurius and Ephraem (Ephraim) were martyred. These saints were loving brethren in the spirit, and kinsmen in the flesh, and they were born in the city of Akhmim. They became monks in one of the monasteries of Upper Egypt, and they remained their for twenty year. Satan, the enemy of good, brought tribulation upon the Orthodox Church, and the followers of Arius entered the churches to offer the sacrifices upon the altars of the Orthodox. These two saints rose up and came to the church and cast aside the bread and wine which the Arians had laid on the alter and said, "He who has not been baptized in the Name of the Holy Trinity is only fit to offer up an offering on the altar of idols." The Arians seized the saints and beat them very severely, until they delivered their souls into the hand of the Lord and they received the crown of martyrdom.
May their prayers be with us, and Glory be to God forever. Amen.
And, again, there are some who are called by us children of God on account of gracereceived even in temporal things, yet are not so called by God; of whom the same John says, They went out from us, but they were not of us, because if they had been of us they would, no doubt, have continued with us.
1 John 2:19 He does not say, They went out from us, but because they did not abide with us they are no longer now of us;
but he says, They went out from us, but they were not of us,
— that is to say, even when they appeared among us, they were not of us.
