2 December 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Holy Martyr Barlaam

He was born in Antioch, and was harshly tortured by the dishonorable judge for his faith in Christ the Lord. The judge decided to use ridicule, and to put such pressure on him that he would offer sacrifice to idols. He accordingly took him to the temple and applied fire to his palm, putting incense on the fire with the thought that the martyr would be forced by the pain to throw the fire and incense from his hand in front of the idols, and thus involuntarily offer them incense. But this heroic soldier of Christ held the fire on his palm, and would not cast it before the idols, until his fingers were burned and fell off, and his palm was burned through and fell to the ground with the fire. ‘He had a right hand stronger than fire’, said St Basil the Great, ‘for, though the flames consumed it, still the hand held the fire as ash.’ Chrysostom writes: ‘The angels looked from the heights; the archangels beheld, for the scene was majestic, surpassing in truth all human nature. Lo, who would not wish to see a man who made such an ascetic endeavor and did not feel that which it is common to man to feel; a man who was himself the altar of sacrifice, and the sacrifice, and the priest?’ When his hand had burned off, his body fell dead to the ground and his soul went to the eternal rest of his Lord and Saviour. This glorious and heroic elder suffered in the year 304.

Catholic Calendar

Blessed John Ruysbroeck

Surnamed the Admirable Doctor, and the Divine Doctor, undoubtedly the foremost of the Flemish mystics, b. at Ruysbroeck, near Brussels, 1293; d. at Groenendael, 2 Dec., 1381. He was blessed with a devout mother, who trained him from infancy in the ways of piety and holiness. Of his father we know nothing; John’s only family name, van Ruysbroeck, is taken from his native hamlet. At the age of eleven he forsook his mother, departing without leave or warning, to place himself under the guidance and tuition of his uncle, John Hinckaert, a saintly priest and a canon of St. Gudule’s, Brussels, who with a fellow-canon of like mind, Francis van Coudenberg, was following a manner of life modeled on the simplicity and fervor of Apostolic days. Blessed John’s relics were carefully preserved and his memory honored as that of a saint. When Groenendael Priory was suppressed by Joseph II in 1783, his relics were transferred to St. Gudule’s, Brussels, where, however, they were lost during the French Revolution.