Presanctified Liturgy: Wednesday in the 6th Week

St. Gregory the Dialogist

 

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 Jordan, /

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 Rome, /

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 Readings

 

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.

 

Reading: Genesis 43:26-31; 45:1-16

 

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.

 

Reading: Proverbs 21:23 – 22:4

 

And the 3 readings of the Hierarch from the Menaion