AT MATINS

**Exapostilarion. Women, hear.**

**Kontakion. Tone 4. Lifted up on the Cross.**

**The usual reading from the Psalter and the Canons from the Oktoichos, and the following of the Saint, of which the Acrostic is**

**Theotokion**.

With love I sing Mary Magdalen.

**Theotokion.**

**By Theophanes.**

**Theotokion.**

**Ode 1. Tone 8. On crossing the water.**

**Or Cross-Theotokion.**

With divine loveliness renowned, and resplendent with light that streams from God, shed radiance, Mary, by your prayers onto my blackened heart.

**Theotokion.**

The Word of the Father rescued you from the wickedness of spirits and made you holy. You became his disciple and have been filled with the gifts of grace of the all-holy Spirit.

**Theotokion.**

Filled with life-giving streams from a plentiful Fount - the Master who through pity appeared on earth -, you dried up the muddy waters of sin.

**Theotokion.**

We sing your praise, O Maiden, as Mother of him who is by nature the Creator, for you reconciled to God human nature that had offended, O Mother of God, all-blameless Lady.

**Theotokion.**

**Ode 3. You constructed.**

**Theotokion.**

Mary, you loved the first cause of blessings, who in compassion made our nature divine, and you followed him fervently, obedient to his divine commands.

**Theotokion.**

Joyfully you came to the tomb of the Redeemer, being the first, O Maiden, to look on the divine Resurrection. Therefore you were declared herald of the Gospel and cried out: Christ has been raised. Clap your hands.

The Word, O all-pure, who was incarnate from your all-pure blood, saves me, with a wealth of goodness abolishing the sentence of the ancient condemnation. Entreat him without ceasing to save your flock.

You constructed the heavens’ high vault, O Lord, and the Church, \* has you as its builder, do you establish me in your love. \* You are the pinnacle \* of all desires, and foundation, \* mankind’s only Lover, of all who believe in you.

**Kathisma. Tone 8. The Wisdom and Word.**

The Word, who had made himself poor in his surpassing compassion, Mary Magdalen truly served as a disciple; but when she saw him hanging on a Cross and laid in a tomb she wept and lamented. Therefore we honour you and celebrate your festival in faith, revered Myrrhbearer, and with one accord we cry out to you: Intercede with Christ God to grant forgiveness of offences to those who celebrate with love your holy memory.

All generations of mankind call you blessed as Virgin and the one who alone among women gave birth to God in the flesh without seed. For the fire of Godhead dwelt in you, and you suckled as a babe the Creator and Lord. Therefore the race of Angels and the human race fittingly glorifies your all-holy child-bearing, and with one accord we cry out to you: Intercede with Christ God to grant forgiveness of offences to those who fittingly worship your Offspring, O Immaculate.

When she saw you on the Cross, O Jesu, the Virgin and your Mother weeping cried out in lamentation: Alas! Sweetest child, how have the children of the Hebrews, truly ungrateful, hanged you unjustly upon a tree? But as you are pitying you suffer all this in the flesh, my Son, long-suffering God, most merciful Lord, as you have been well pleased, that you may deliver what you fashioned from the slavery of the Boaster. And so I sing the praise, O Word, of your supreme condescension.

**Ode 4. I have heard, Lord.**

With a mind undisturbed by the vanity of the world, you served the one who had come to save the whole world from error.

As you washed the tomb of Life with tears, Mary, you met an Angel and saw him proclaim Christ’s Resurrection.

Your heart was blameless in Christ’s statutes, and you longed for him alone, the one fair in beauty, O worthy of praise.

By the slumber of indifference the sleep of sin overcame me, O Maiden. By your unsleeping intercession rouse me to repentance.

**Ode 5. Why have you rejected me.**

The foremother, seeing the one who tricked her by words and exiled her from Paradise of old trampled on by holy women who had gained a will of courage, rejoices with them eternally.

Wounded with longing for his sweet love, you bring sweet spices to the one who breathes life into all, now slain and lying in a tomb, holy Mary Magdalen, and pour out the fragrant scent of tears.

After the divine Passion, after the dread Resurrection of the Saviour you hurried to and fro, proclaiming the holy word, and as a Disciple of the Word catching many who had been deceived by ignorance, glorious Saint.

The one who through his measureless mercy was well pleased to be born from you, all-holy Maiden, sets upright me, who have fallen into the tangled gulfs of sin. Implore him that those who with faith sing your praise may be rescued from every harm.

**Ode 6. Have mercy on me, O Saviour.**

With the dew of your words, honoured Saint, you dispelled the fierce heat of the despair of the Disciples as you cried out: Christ has been raised; Life has appeared; the radiant Sun has blazed forth.

See, Mary, worthy of praise, your feast filled with light has shone out, giving light to all who on it faithfully sing your praise, and chasing away the darkness of the abuse of evil demons.

You have appeared, O all-blameless, as a spiritual sanctuary and mercy seat that may not be touched, lampstand formed of light and bridge leading over to God those who sing your praise as Mother of God.

Have mercy on me, O Saviour, for my offences are many; and bring me up from the deep of evils, I beg; for to you I have cried; and hearken to me, O God of my salvation.

God who is beyond being when he dwelt in flesh in the world approved you as a true Disciple, O Myrrhbearer, for all your desire was for him. Therefore you accomplished many healings, and now, having passed over, in heaven you intercede at every moment on behalf of the world.

Christ the light of the world, seeing you the vigilant eye of faith and the inseparable charm of love, honoured Saint, on rising from the grave showed himself to you first, who had hastened with sweet spices and drawn near to the unapproachable. He in return granted you the divine force of the Spirit and revealed to you the design of his ascent to the Father who has no beginning. And he sent you to proclaim the divine good tidings of his Rising to the Disciples, petrified with fear. And so, as you have the greatest freedom to address him, you intercede at every moment on behalf of the world.

**Synaxarion.**

On the 22nd of the month, Commemoration of the holy Myrrhbearer and Equal of the Apostles, Mary Magdalen.

**With touches immaterial she touches you,

My Christ, to whom you said, ‘O Mary, touch me not.’

Magdala’s Mary slept the twenty second.

She was from Magdala in the regions of Syria. When she approached Christ troubled by seven demons, she was delivered from them by Christ’s grace. Then she followed him until his Passion and was one of the Myrrhbearers. She, with the ‘other Mary’, the most holy Mother of God, was the first to behold the Resurrection, when she saw the Angel late on the Sabbath. In the morning she saw two Angels sitting clothed in white, and then the Lord himself, whom she thought was a gardener. From him she heard the words: Do not touch me. After the divine and holy Ascension she came to Ephesus, to Saint John, the Apostle and Divine. There she fell asleep in sanctity and was laid to rest at the entrance to the cave in which the Seven Holy Youths slept. Later under Leo, who by blessed fortune had become our King, her relics were translated by him and laid in the monastery of St Lazarus established by him, in which her annual assembly is celebrated, and in the estate of Curator near the Taurus..

On the same day, commemoration of the holy Virgin Martyr Marcella.

At their holy intercessions, O God, have mercy on us. Amen.

**Ode 7. The Hebrew Youths.**

You drove out diseases of many kinds, having gained the Word as your fellow-worker, before whom you now stand, O Myrrhbearer, crying out: Blessed are you, Lord God, to the ages.

Alone before the rest you saw our life, Christ who had been raised; but you took him for the gardener, crying out: Blessed are you, Lord God, to the ages.

You halted the onrush of death as you conceived and gave birth to immortal God, pure Virgin. To you we all sing: Blessed, all-pure, is the fruit of your womb.

**Ode 8. The Chaldean tyrant.**

Your way of life, O Magdalen, was resplendent blazing with the beams of virtuous actions, of the divine proclamation and your inclination to the divine, and with the bright rays of love for the Creator, to whom you sing with the Angels: You priests, bless; you people, highly exalt to all the ages.

You stood by the Cross, glorious Mary, watching the unjust slaughter of the one who emptied himself through ineffable mercy; and drenched with groans and tears, you cried out: What is this strange wonder? How is he, who slew death and who is life by nature, slain and dying?

With one mind we glorify you as Mother of God and higher than all creatures, O all-pure. For in you the condemnation that came from Adam has been annulled, and rejected human nature has been reconciled and sings: You priests, bless; you people, highly exalt to all the ages.

The Chaldean Tyrant insanely made the furnace blaze seven times more fiercely for those who reverenced God; but when he saw they had been saved by a greater power he cried aloud to the Creator and Redeemer: You Youths, bless; you priests, praise; you people, highly exalt to all the ages.

**Ode 9. Heaven was amazed.**

You have now been translated to divine joy, to the broad plain of Paradise, to spiritual dwellings beyond the world, where the ranks of Holy Ones are found and the pure sound of those who feast in splendour, O Myrrhbearer Mary. And so we all call you blessed.

You preferred none of the things on earth to the love of Christ God, but wounded by his beauties only and by the bright beams at once sent forth, following in his footsteps, O all-honoured, you cried out: I magnify you, O most merciful.

You have found deification that makes divine, you enjoy the torrent of grace, receive the rewards for your toils from God, are numbered with the ranks of the Apostles, Magdalen, Disciple of the Word. By your prayers guard those who honour you with love.

As Mother of the one who suffered the Passion for our sake, save me from soul-destroying passions; as you are compassionate, loose the bonds of my faults; as you are good, do good to my soul, now wearied by the abuse of demons, Virgin Mother of God, that I may sing your praise as all-blameless.

Heaven was amazed at this and the ends of the earth astounded: that God had appeared to mankind in bodily form, and that your womb had become far wider than the heavens. And so, Mother of God, the ranks of Angels and of humans magnify you.

Mary, aptly named, and Disciple of Christ, with the rest of the Myrrhbearers and Mary the Virgin, alone Mother of God, without ceasing implore the crucified Lord on behalf of us who honour you from love, O Myrrhbearer.

**The rest of the Office and Dismissal **