Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr

For I have had great joy and consolation in thy charity, because the bowels of the saints have been refreshed by thee, brother. ⁸Wherefore though I have much confidence in Christ Jesus, to command thee that which is to the purpose: ⁹For charity sake I rather beseech, whereas thou art such a one, as Paul an old man, and now a prisoner also of Jesus Christ. ¹⁰I beseech thee for my son, whom I have begotten in my bands, Onesimus, ¹¹Who hath been heretofore unprofitable to thee, but now is profitable both to me and thee, ¹²Whom I have sent back to thee. And do thou receive him as my own bowels. ¹³Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered to me in the bands of the gospel: ¹⁴But without thy counsel I would do nothing: that thy good deed might not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary. ¹⁵For perhaps he therefore departed for a season from thee, that thou mightest receive him again for ever: ¹⁶Not now as a servant, but instead of a servant, a most dear brother, especially to me: but how much more to thee both in the flesh and in the Lord? ¹⁷If therefore thou count me a partner, receive him as myself. ¹⁸And if he hath wronged thee in any thing, or is in thy debt, put that to my account. ¹⁹I Paul have written it with my own hand: I will repay it: not to say to thee, that thou owest me thy own self also. ²⁰Yea, brother. May I enjoy thee in the Lord. Refresh my bowels in the Lord.

⁷Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered: ⁸The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just. ⁹The Lord keepeth the strangers, he will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy. ¹⁰The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.

℟ Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper.

And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come? he answered them, and said: The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: ²¹Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you. ²²And he said to his disciples: The days will come, when you shall desire to see one day of the Son of man; and you shall not see it. ²³And they will say to you: See here, and see there. Go ye not after, nor follow them: ²⁴For as the lightening that lighteneth from under heaven, shineth unto the parts that are under heaven, so shall the Son of man be in his day. ²⁵But first he must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation.