Ode 6. Irmos.

Kontakion. Tone 4.

I will sacrifice to you, Lord, with a voice of praise, your Church cries out to you, purified from the filth of demons by the blood which flows through pity from your side.

The mid-point of Pentecost is here to-day, brilliant from the one side in the brightness of the divine Pascha, and shining from the other with grace of the Comforter.

As you stood in the Temple, O Christ, you spoke with the Jewish people, revealing your own glory, and showing forth your identity of nature with the Father.

Be my protection and an unshakeable wall, delivering me from the world’s stumbling blocks, only Mother of God, and making me shine with the light that floods from God.

Like waves of the sea.

O Jesu, who control the ends of the earth, you went up and taught the crowds in the temple the word of truth at the mid-point of the feast, as John declares.

You opened your lips, Master, and proclaimed to the world the immaculate Father and the all-holy Spirit, keeping your identity of nature with them even after the incarnation.

You completed the Father’s work, you confirmed your words by works, O Saviour, performing cures and signs, making the Paralytic stand upright, cleansing lepers and raising the dead.

The Son without beginning became a beginning, taking our nature he became man; and at the middle of the feast he taught, saying: Run to the unfailing source to draw life.

We all glorify one Godhead in Trinity, Being in three Persons, uncreated, inseparable, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as being three yet one.

As Virgin after childbirth we hymn you; as alone Virgin and Mother we glorify you, pure Maiden, bride of God; for from you God was truly incarnate, making us new.

Like waves of the sea, O Lover of mankind, the waves of life assail me; therefore like Jonas I cry to You, O Word: Bring my life up from corruption, compassionate Lord.

Lifted up on the Cross.

At the mid-point of the feast according to the Law, Maker of all things and Master, you said to those who were there, Christ God: Come, and draw the water of immortality. Therefore we fall down before you and with faith we cry: Grant us your mercies, for you are the source of our life.

Water my soul, dried up by lawless faults, with the streams of your blood and show it to be heavy with the fruits of virtues; for you have told all to come to you, All-holy Word of God, and to draw the living water of incorruption, which cleanses the sins of those who hymn your glorious and divine Rising. You grant to those who know you to be God, the strength of the Spirit which was brought from on high to your Disciples: for you are the source of our life.

Synaxarion from the Menaion, then the following:

On the Wednesday of the Paralysed Man we feast the feast of Mid-Pentecost.

Christ, the Messias, mid the teachers stands,

And teaches at the mid-point of the feast.

We celebrate this feast in honour of the two great feasts, of Pascha, I mean, and Pentecost, as it unites and binds them both. It occurred in this way. After Christ had performed the supernatural wonder on the Paralytic, the Jews, scandalized indeed because of the Sabbath (for it took place on the Sabbath), sought to kill him. He therefore fled to Galilee, and as he was sojourning on the mountains there, he performed the marvel of the five loaves and two fishes, nourishing five thousand men, not counting women and children. Afterwards at the feast of Tabernacles (this too is a great feast for the Jews) he went up to Jerusalem and went about in secret. About the mid-point of the feast he went up into the Temple and began to teach, and all were amazed at his teaching; but being envious of him they said: How does this man know letters, never having learned? For being the New Adam he knew, being filled with all wisdom as the first one, and again because he was God. Therefore they all murmured and we for slaying him. But Christ confused them, acting as though they were contending about the Sabbath, and said: Why do you seek to kill me? But he again referred to what had gone before, saying: If you contend for the Law, why are angry at me? Because I made a man whole on the Sabbath, when Moses who laid down the law on these things says that it is to be set aside for the sake of circumcision. He argued with them at length over this and showed that he himself had given the Law and that he was equal with the Father. And especially on the last day of the feast he was stoned by them; but not a single stone so much as touched him. And when he was passing by from there he found the man born blind and gave him his sight.

Know that there are three great feasts among the Jews. The first is the Passover, which is celebrated in the first month and commemorates the crossing of the Red Sea. The second is Pentecost, which remembers the sojourning in the wilderness, after the crossing of the Red Sea; for they passed fifty days in the wilderness until they received the Law from Moses. It is also in honour of the number seven, which is held in reverence by them.

The third feast is that of Tabernacles, in memory of the Tabernacle which Moses saw in the cloud on the mountain and which he erected through the craftsman Beseleel. It is also celebrated for seven days in memory of the gathering of fruits and the repose in the wilderness. It was then, as this feast was drawing to its end that Jesus stood and cried with a loud voice: If any thirst, let him come to me and drink!

Since then by this teaching Christ declared himself to be the Messiah, becoming our Mediator and Reconciler with his eternal Father. For this reason we celebrate the present feast and naming it ‘Mid-Pentecost’ we hymn Christ and place alongside the honour of the other two great feasts. This, I think, is why the feast of the Samaritan Woman is celebrated after it: because that feast also has much to do with the Messiah, and with water and with thirst, as this one. For in the Gospel of John that of the Blind man rather precedes the Samaritan Woman.

In your infinite mercy, Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.