Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Mark (10: 46-52) in which a blind man named Bartimaeus asks to ‘see’ Jesus and is healed by him. Afterwards, Fr Paul shares a little about the live of St Justin whose memorial we celebrate today.

Fr Paul says Justin was born at the beginning of the second century in Nablus, in Samaria, of a pagan Greek family. He was an earnest seeker of the truth and studied many systems of philosophy before being led to Christianity.

While remaining a layman, he accepted the duty of making the truth known, and travelled from place to place proclaiming the Gospel. In 151 he travelled from Ephesus to Rome, where he opened a school of philosophy and wrote defences and expositions of Christianity, which have survived to this day. They are the earliest known writings of their kind.

In the persecution of 165, in the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, he was denounced as a Christian, arrested, and beheaded. The transcript of his trial by the prefect of Rome, Rusticus, has also survived to this day.

On this day, Fr Paul invites to pray ‘St Justin…Pray for us!”