THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

GREAT VESPERS ON SATURDAY EVENING

Tone 6. Having set all your hope.

The prophets, inspired by your Spirit, Lord, foretold that you, who cannot be grasped, and who shone forth without beginning before the morning star from the immaterial and bodiless womb of the Father, would become a child, incarnate from one who did not know wedlock, joined to mortals and seen by those on earth. Through them in your compassion count us worthy of your light, as we sing the praise of your ineffable and holy Resurrection.

Prophets inspired by God preached you in word and honoured you in works, and gathered the fruit of life without end. For steadfastly refusing, Master, to adore Creation instead of you, the Creator, they renounced the whole world like the Gospel says, and they were conformed to your Passion, which they had foretold. At their intercessions, count us worthy to pass through the stadium of self-mastery without blame, for you alone are rich in mercy.

Uncircumscribed, Master, in your divine nature, and incarnate in the last times, you were pleased to be circumscribed; for in assuming flesh, you also took on all its properties. Therefore, depicting the form of your likeness, we give it a relative salutation and are exalted to love of you, and following the godly traditions of the apostles, we draw from it the grace of healings.

The Church of Christ has received a precious adornment: the radiant restoration of the venerable and holy ikons of Christ the Saviour, of God’s Mother and of all the saints. Through this she is made bright and resplendent with grace and rejects the throng of heretics as she drives them out and joyfully gives glory to God who loves humankind, and who for her sake endured his voluntary sufferings.

The grace of truth has shone out; the things prefigured in shadows in times of old have now been openly fulfilled. For see, the Church is clothed in a beauty that surpasses all earthly beauty, the physical ikon of Christ, as she displays the type of the Tent of Witness and maintains the Orthodox faith, so that, holding fast to the ikon of the One we worship, we may not go astray. Let all who do not believe like this be covered with shame; but our glory is the form of the One made flesh, which is devoutly worshipped but not made a god. As we kiss it, let us believers cry aloud, ‘O God, save your people and bless your inheritance’.

At the Liti, the Idiomel of the Saint of the Monastery as usual and after that the following.

Hail, honoured Prophets, who rightly ordered the law of God and by your faith were shown to be indestructible and unshakeable pillars, for you appeared as mediators of Christ’s new Covenant, and having passed over into heaven, implore him to give to the world and to save our souls.

All my hope I place in you, Mother of God. Guard me beneath your protection.

Alphabetical Aposticha in the Tone of the week from the Octoichos, and then:

Advancing from false religion to true, and illumined with the light of knowledge, let us clap our hands, as the psalm says, offering praise and thanksgiving to God; and with fitting honour let us worship the sacred ikons of Christ, of the all-pure Virgin and all the saints, whether depicted on walls, panels or sacred vessels, rejecting the impious religion of the heretics; for, as Basil says, the honour shown to the ikon passes to the prototype, as we ask that at the prayers of your immaculate Mother, Christ our God, and of all the saints, we may be granted your great mercy.

O new wonder, greater than all the wonders of old! For who has ever known of a Mother has given birth without a man and carries in her arms the One who holds all creation in his grasp? That which was conceived is the Counsel of God, whom you, All-pure, carried as a babe in your embrace and with whom, as you have gained a mother’s freedom to speak, do not cease to intercede on behalf of those who honour you, that he take pity and save our souls.