1- On this day, our Coptic Church celebrates, as well as the Church in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the monthly commemoration of the mother of God Saint Mary the Virgin, who intercedes for us before her beloved Son.

Her intercession be with us. Amen.

2- Also, on this day, the Church holds a commemoration for the departure of St. Irani (i.e., Irini), which is translated "peace." She was the daughter of one of the pagan kings, that is the rulers, in Asia called Licinius, and she was of magnificent beauty.  And due to her father's overprotection of her, he put her in a fortified palace, and he set up female servants to serve her and watch over her.  At that time she was six years of age.  Her father left her some idols to bow down and worship to, and he appointed an elder sage and teacher to instruct her.  And it happened that the saint saw in a vision a dove and in its mouth an olive leaf.  So she went down and placed it on the table in front of her.  Then an eagle descended and with it a crown and placed it also on the table.  After this, a crow came and with it a snake and placed it on the table.  She panicked from this vision, and she told it to her teacher who was Christian without the knowledge of her father.  He answered her that the dove is the teaching of the law, the olive leaf is baptism, the eagle is victory, the crown is the glory of the saints, the crow is the king, and the snake is persecution.  He finished his words that she will need to struggle for the sake of the faith in Christ the Lord.

And when she reached the age of marriage, her father the king visited her and offered her marriage to one of the nobles, so she requested of him a delay of three days to think about the matter.  And when he left her, she went in to the idols, and asked them to guide her, and they gave no reply.  So she lifted up her eyes to heaven and said: "O God of the Christians, guide me to what pleases you." Then the angel of Lord appeared to her and said: "Tomorrow, one of the disciples of Paul the Apostle will come to you, and he will teach you what is needed and baptize you."  And on the next day, the disciple of Paul the Apostle came to her and taught her the mysteries of the religion and baptized her.

When her father came to her at the [appointed] time and she informed him that she became a Christian, he was infuriated, and exposed her to many tortures, among them that he commanded that she be tied to a wild horse's tail and then released it.  Besides that God preserved her so that no harm came to her, the horse itself returned and took hold with its mouth the arm of her father and cast him to the ground and he fell dead.  And with the prayers of his daughter the saint he arose alive.  So he believed, he and his wife with about three thousand souls and they received the mystery of holy baptism.

God honored this saint by performing many miracles before governors and kings such that many believed because of her.  And when she completed her struggle she departed in peace.  Two churches were built in Constantinople in the name of St. Irini in the fifth century.

May her prayers be with us.  And to our Lord is the glory forever and always. Amen.

On this day was the Assumption/Ascension of the body of our Lady, the Theotokos, St. Mary the Virgin to heaven, and her apparition to our fathers the Apostles seated on the right of her Son and her God in great glory, and her blessing all of them, while surrounded by ranks of angels and the righteous.

She had departed before then by 206 days on the 21 of the month of Tubah, when she delivered her spirit into the hand of her Son and her God, which he wrapped in a luminous raiment, and ascended it to the dwellings on high.  The place was filled with a nice fragrant aroma.  The Lord commanded the apostles to shroud her body in His presence, and its burial in Gethsemane in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. So they buried it there in a new tomb, and they guarded the tomb.

The fathers the apostles were sorrowful for her separation from them and their losing (orphaned) from her.  So the Lord consoled them with his promise that he would show her to them another time.  And he commanded them to persist in visiting the place for prayer and praise before her pure tomb until the fulfillment of his true promise to them on the 16th day of the month of Mesra.  So they gathered together and spent the night of the 16th of the month of Mesra watchful, praising and singing in front of the entrance/door of the cave in which the pure body was placed.  They heard voices of rejoicing and spiritual praises and angelic melodies, and they did not know mystery behind them. However, God, His Name be glorified, desired to lift the body of His mother on the wings of his luminous angels, so he sent a rank of them to fulfill this.

And the Lord willed to reveal this mystery to Thomas the apostle, who had not been present at the time of the Virgin's departure due to his being busy with preaching in India.  So He sent him a luminous cloud to transport him to Gethsemane at the time of the apostles gathering there.  And while he was on the cloud, he saw the angels carrying the body of the Virgin Mary.  So he hurried and kissed it.  And when he arrived where the apostles were gathered at her tomb, and they informed him of her departure, he asked them insistently that they open the tomb.  When they arose with him and moved the stone from the door of the tomb, they found it empty and were amazingly perplexed.  So Thomas informed them that he saw the body of the Virgin ascending to the heavens being carried on the wings of the angels and he was blessed by it.  They glorified God and arose and hurried ascending from the valley to the Mount of Olives.  They arrived seeking that the Lord reveal to them by His Holy Spirit the place of the body of the Theotokos St. Mary.  And immediately a heavenly cloud appeared, seized the fathers the apostles, and brought them to Paradise.  So they saw the Theotokos seated on the right of her Son and her God with great glory, according to the saying of the Psalmist David the Prophet:  "the queen stood by on thy right hand, clothed in vesture wrought with gold, and arrayed in divers colours," surrounded by ranks of angels and the righteous.  She extended her hand and blessed each one of the apostles, so their souls rejoiced and they knelt before her, and they returned joyful.

And we also rejoice today with the commemoration of the assumption/ascent of the body of the Theotokos Mary the Virgin to heaven and her apparition to the disciples.  We celebrate her with a spiritual feast.  The Church arranged that there be  preparation for it with a holy fast preceding it for a period of fifteen days, beginning from the first of the month of Mesra.  And we are mindful that the fast be coupled with a true repentance, and accompanied with good works, with continuous praise, and the increase of prayers, and communion in the liturgies.  And by this we might be worthy to attain the blessings on the feast of the assumption of her pure body, and the commemoration of its spiritual luminous apparition, which extends to include/encompass us also in our current generation.

Her intercessions be with us.  And to our Lord is due the glory forever and ever. Amen.

1- Today is the Feast of al-Nayrouz, the beginning of the blessed Coptic Year.  Let us keep it as a holy day with all purity and chastity, and keep away from detestable works and begin with new acceptable works.  For Paul the Apostle said: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.  Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:17-18). And Isaiah the Prophet said: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to [a]heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Is 61:1-2). Also, David the Prophet said: "Bless the crown of the year with Your goodness; and Your plains shall be filled with fatness" (Ps 64:11 LXX in Coptic translation).

Let us ask our God to renew our lives, and to keep us without sin, and to help us to act according to His pleasure/satisfaction, through the intercession of the pure St. Mary the Virgin, and all of the martyrs and saints. Amen.

2- Also, on it is the commemoration of the healing of Job the Righteous by his bathing in water.  Thus, it became a regular custom with the new water, that is the water of the new year, that people bathe in it seeking the blessing at the beginning of the Coptic year.

3- Also, on it is the commemoration of Elisha the prophet, in accordance with the menologium (ecclesiastical calendar of the feasts of the Coptic Church in the Middle Ages).  The reason for his commemoration on this day might be the miracles particularly related to water which God performed by his hands, as related to what is similar as told by tradition of the healing of Job by bathing in water.  For Elisha the prophet had purified the dirty waters of Jericho that caused the land to be barren. This occurred by his putting salt in a new bowl and then casting the salt into the source of the water, and saying: "Thus says the Lord: ‘I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.’” Likewise, Elisha the prophet cleansed Naaman the Syrian from leprosy by commanding him to wash seven times in the Jordan.  So he went down and immersed in the Jordan seven times, and his flesh was restored as that of a little child and he was cleansed (2 Kings 5:14).

4- Also, on it is the commemoration of the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew the apostle, and his name is mentioned with Philip the apostle in the lists of the names of the twelve disciples of the Lord.  Preferably, he is the one mentioned in the Gospel of John by the name of Nathaniel who Philip called and came with him to Christ.

This saint's arrow went out, that is, his lot fell, to depart to Western Oasis. So he departed, he and Peter there. And he preached its inhabitants and called them to the knowledge of God, and God performed brilliant signs and miracles by his hands, among them that when the son of leader of the city/country/region/area died, Bartholomew the Apostle raised him from the dead, and they all believed, and he established them in the knowledge of God.  Then Christ the Master commanded him to depart to the land of the Berbers, and He sent to him Andrew his disciple to help him.... And Bartholomew also went to the regions that were on the shore of the sea and he called out in them, and restored them to the knowledge of God and the faith in Christ the Master.  And he taught them to do works befitting Christianity, and he would command them with purity and chastity.  And when the king heard of him, he resented him and commanded that they place him in a hair sack and to fill it with sand and cast it into the sea.  So they did this to him and he completed his apostolic struggle and departed.

His prayers be with us. Amen.

And the Coptic Church also celebrates the preaching of St. Bartholomew the Apostle in the Western Oasis in Egypt with a commemoration in the Synaxarium on the 19th day of the month of Hatur. It also has a tradition that the body of St. Bartholomew the Apostle who preached in the Western Oasis in Egypt was present with the body of St. Simeon the Cananite the Apostle in the monastery of St. Shenouda near Suhaj.  However, the place of their bodies in the monastery is not currently known.

Eusebius of Caesarea documents a tradition that Pantaenus, who became the head of the Christian theological school in Alexandria approximately around the year 180 AD, had traveled in a mission expedition/voyage to India, and there he found Christians from whom he learned that Bartholomew the Apostle, when he preached in their lands, left with them the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew language.  Jerome adds that Pantaenus brought with him that Gospel to Alexandria.

5- And this day also is a commemoration of the departure of St. Milius (or Milianus), also called Abilius the third patriarch of Alexandria.  He is the second successor of St. Mark the Apostle.  He was one of the three priests that St. Mark the Apostle ordained at the time that he ordained Anianus bishop around the year 62 AD before he returned to Pentapolis, the five Western cities.  And when St. Anianus departed, they deliberated and presented in his place the father Milius as patriarch on the throne of St. Mark around the year 85 AD.  So he shepherded the flock of Christ with the best case, and the church was graced with peace, and the Orthodox congregation in Alexandria and Egypt and Pentapolis (five Western cities) grew in his days. And he remained on the throne of St. Mark approximately thirteen years.  He departed on the first of Tut around the year 98 AD.

His prayers be with us. Amen.

6- Also on it is the commemoration of the departure of Pope Mark V, the 98th patriarch among the patriarchs of the See of St. Mark (1603 - 19 AD) who encountered many difficulties during his life.

His prayers and the prayers of the saints of this day be with us.  And to our Lord is the glory forever and always. Amen.