Presanctified Liturgy:
Wednesday in the 6th Week
Tone
5:
I
am rich in passions and clothed in the deceitful robe of hypocrisy, /
and
I rejoice in the sins of self-indulgence.
/
There
is no limit to my lack of love. /
I
neglect my spiritual understanding, /
that lies at the gate of repentance, /
starved of all good things, sick through want of care. /
O
Lord, make me like Lazarus poor in sin, /
that I be not tormented in the flame /
that never shall be quenched, /
and
pray in vain for a finger to be dipped in water /
and
laid upon my tongue. /
But
in Thy love for mankind //
make me dwell with the Patriarch Abraham.
Twice
Your
souls, O holy martyrs, /
were filled with an insatiable love; /
not
denying Christ ye endured great sufferings and torment, /
and
ye cast down the tyrants’ pride. /
Ye
kept the faith unaltered and unharmed, /
and
now ye have gone to dwell in heaven. /
Since
ye have boldness before Christ, //
pray that peace be given to the world, and to our souls great mercy.
When
Thou wast journeying in the flesh, O Jesus, /
on
the other side of the
Thou
hast said to Thy companions:
“My
friend Lazarus is already dead, /
and
now has been committed to the tomb. /
And
so for your sakes I rejoice, my friends, /
for
by this ye shall learn that I know all things, /
since I am God, inseparable from the Father, /
though in my visible appearance I am man. /
Let
us go then, to bring him back to life, /
that death may feel the defeat /
and
utter destruction that I bring upon it, //
bestowing my great mercy on the world.
O
ye faithful, let us follow the example of Martha and Mary, /
and
as intercessors let us send to the Lord our acts of righteousness, /
that He may come to raise up from the dead our spiritual understanding, /
which lies insensible within the tomb of negligence, /
lacking all feeling of the fear of God /
and
having no vital energy. /
So
let us cry: As once by Thy dead authority, O merciful Lord, /
Thou
hast raised up Thy friend Lazarus, /
so
now give life to all of us, //
and
grant us Thy great mercy.
Tone:
6:
Lazarus
has now been two days in the tomb, /
and
He sees the dead from all the ages. /
There
he beholds strange sights of terror, /
a
multitude that none can number, the prisoners of hell. /
His
sisters bitterly lament, looking upon his tomb.
/
But
Christ comes to bring His friend to life, /
that a single hymn of praise may be offered up with one accord by all: //
Blessed
art Thou, O Savior, have mercy upon us.
Tone
6 (Special Melody: “Having set all aside…”):
Arrayed
in the vestments of a hierarch, O thrice-blessed one, /
thou didst enter into the Holy of holies, /
fervently sending up praise to thy master with pure lips, like an angel; /
and,
illumined with deifying splendor, /
thou didst teach the faithful the theology of the Faith, /
O
divinely radiant Gregory, /
as
the godly shepherd of
the
teacher of the Church and initiate of the mysteries //
of
the grace of God.
Ever
cleaving unto the Lord, /
and
united to the divine Ember in purity, O hierarch, /
thou didst set down the liturgy of the presanctified Gifts, /
hallowing the faithful therewith during the days of fasting /
and
rescuing them from the snares of the enemy; /
and
thou didst bring them into the fold of heaven, /
showing thyself to be a pillar of fire in the splendor of thy piety /
and
the effulgence of thy divine teaching, //
O
God-bearing father Gregory.
Thou
didst blamelessly preserve the holy anointing of the hierarch, /
O
sacred Gregory, /
and
by the grace of Christ didst cause the gifts thereof to increase, /
like talents, in love and meekness, in the ardor of faith, /
in
compassion and prayer, /
and
in all whereby thou wast well-pleasing to the only Lord of glory. /
Wherefore,
thou didst piously shepherd /
the
reason-endowed flock of Christ in the meadow of salvation, //
O
divinely eloquent one.
Thy
divine memory hath now shone forth like the sun upon the ends of the world, O
most honored one, joyfully illumining all the faithful with mystic splendors;
and, assembling, we honor it with sacred psalms and hymns, entreating thee to beseech
Christ in behalf of those who hymn thee, O divinely glorious one.
Glory…
Tone 3:
Receiving from Christ the helm of the Church of
Rome, /
O hierarch Gregory of great renown, /
thou didst pilot its
ship to the haven of salvation /
and didst save it from the
tempests of the enemy /
by the teaching of thy
divinely wise words; /
wherefore,
as thou hast boldness, /
earnestly
ask of the Lord peace for the world //
and salvation for our souls.
Both
now… Tone 3:
How
can we not marvel /
at
thy giving birth to the God-man, O all-honored one. /
For
without having accepted the temptation of a man, /
O
all-immaculate one, /
without a father thou gavest birth in the flesh to a Son /
Who
was begotten without a mother before the ages, /
without His undergoing change, confusion or division, /
yet
preserving intact the character of both essences. /
Wherefore,
O Virgin Mother and Mistress, /
entreat Him, that the souls of those who in Orthodox manner //
confess thee to be the Theotokos be saved.
Prokimena
and Old Testament
Tone
4:
I
will be well-pleasing before the Lord in the land of the living.
Stichos: I am filled with love, for
the Lord will hear the voice of my supplication.
Tone
4:
My
vows unto the Lord will I pay in the presence of all His people.
Stichos: I believed, wherefore I
spake; I was humbled exceedingly.
And the 3 readings of the
Hierarch from the Menaion