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| Sts. Kosmas and Damian the Unmercenaries (Feast Day - November 1) |
Verses
Though the Unmercenary pair have passed from earth,
They fill the earth with wonders now as then.
Two healing lights from the earth fly up on the first of November.
Kosmas and Damian were unmercenaries and wonderworkers. They were brothers both in the flesh and in the spirit, born somewhere in Asia Minor of pious and virtue-loving parents. After their father's death, their mother Theodote (Jan. 2) devoted all her time and effort to educating her sons and raising them as true Christians. God helped her, and her sons matured as sweet fruit and luminaries of the world. They were learned in the art of medicine and ministered to the sick without payment, not so much with medicine as by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were called "unmercenary physicians," that is, unpaid physicians, for they healed freely and thus fulfilled the commandment of Christ: "Freely you have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8).
