Memhir Esuendale:
Feasts of Nehasse 30
✞✞✞On this day we commemorate the Apostle St. Andrew and the Prophet Malachi✞✞✞
✞✞✞In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen!✞✞✞
✞✞✞Our merciful God has enabled us to complete the Month of Nehasse in peace by the protection of His Fatherly grace; and without Him judging us saying, “Your sins have amassed and your bodies are defiled”. We forget that in these past thirty days, millions have died, millions have fallen ill and many have renounced their faith.
✞And we did not encounter all these, not because we are/were good, rather it was because His mercy was many folds upon us. Now, we have to pray to reach to the New Year in peace.
✞On this day, we commemorate the following saints.
✞✞✞St. Andrew the Apostle✞✞✞
✞✞✞The Holy Apostle was born and grew up around Bethsaida and was the younger brother of the Arch-apostle St. Peter. And his father was Jona. The Saint learned fishing from his older brother from his childhood. And when he was older, after learning the Old Testament, he became the disciple of St. John the Baptist.
✞After the Lord returned from His fast (in the Desert of Judea), St. Andrew followed Him inspired by the Holy Spirit. There, hearing St. John the Baptist’s testimony, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), St. Andrew followed the Lord.
✞And for this, he was able to be called the first disciple of Christ. (John 1:47) And the scholar Mar Gelawdios in his praise to St. Mary (Hymns of the Icon) confirms it saying, “Mary you are the faith of the First Apostle Andrew.”
✞The Gospel tells us that the Holy Apostle was a haste servant (John 6:9/12:22). He preached in many parts of the world though his See was Lydda (Lod); after learning under the Lord for three years and three months, and receiving the Holy Spirit at the day of Pentecost.
✞Today is the day, on which the Apostle spoke with the Lord in a ship and saved St. Matthias from the hands of men who were cannibals (ate people).
✞Because all the seamen said that they would not allow St. Andrew and his disciples, who went to a dock to sail, to board their boats for a journey that would take thirty days, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs glory, came as a young captain and took the Apostle and his disciples. Thus, He enabled them to complete the voyage in hours, which would have taken them thirty days.
✞St. Andrew thought that the captain was just a man and preached about the Lord to the Lord and wished Him well. However, when he knew that the captain was our Lord, he was shocked and wept.
✞As it says in the hymn,
“When he discerned You, and identified Your semblance;
He said ‘All that I told Thee in arrogance,
Redeem which I transgressed and have forgiveness’”
✞And he then said, “Forgive me?” and the Lord replied, “Be strong! I am with you.” The Holy Apostle departed while hastening for the Gospel on Tahisas 4 (December 13).
✞✞✞St. Malachi the Prophet✞✞✞
✞✞✞Malachi is one of the twelve Minor Prophets and is called the “Last Prophet.” There are two reasons for this.
1. There is no book of prophecy written after him.
2. And because the Era after his departure was the “Era of Priest”; even though prophets were extant in those times, only about a handful were spoken of.
✞The saint was born around six hundred years before the birth of Christ. And he has rebuked the people of Israel after their return from exile [from Babylon]. This was because the people did not stop committing sin, even after they returned from seventy years of bondage.
✞Especially, he rebuked those who dealt treacherously their wives of youth (Mal. 2:14), and he enunciated about tithes and offerings (first born and the like) (Mal. 3:8). He also spoke about our Lady the Virgin Mary by symbolizing her with a hall, which is pure (Mal. 3:1).
