AT GREAT VESPERS

O Joyful Light **and the Saturday Prokeimenon.**

Then the Readings.

**After the Opening Psalm and the whole of the 1st Kathisma of the Psalter, at** Lord, I have cried **we inset 10 Stichera and sing the following 5 Idiomels, doubling them.**

Entrance and the Prokeimenon of Sunday evening.

The Reading is from Genesis

Tone 6.

Then Jacob called his sons, and said to them, ‘Gather round, that I may tell you what will happen to you in the last days. Assemble and hear me, sons of Jacob. Hear Israel, hear your father. Juda, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand will be on the back of your enemies. Your father’s sons will bow down before you. Juda is a lion’s whelp. From a tender shoot, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a whelp. Who will rouse him? A ruler will not fail from Juda, nor a leader from his thighs, until the things laid up for him come, and he is the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal to the vine and his ass’s colt to the branch, he will wash his robe in wine and his cloak in the blood of the grape. His eyes are more cheering than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk’.

Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together, and taking up the Cross we all say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!’

Glory. Both now.

He who has heaven as his throne and earth his footstool, the Word and co-eternal Son of God the Father, having come to Bethany, showed his humility today on the colt of a dumb animal. Therefore the children of the Hebrews, holding branches in their hands, sang his praise and cried, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes, the King of Israel’.

Let us too, all the new Israel, the Church from the nations, come today and let us cry out, ‘Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion. Proclaim it, daughter of Jerusalem. For see, your King is coming to you, meek and bringing salvation, and mounted on the colt of an ass, offspring of a beast of burden. Celebrate with the Children. Holding branches in your hands shout his praise, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes, the King of Israel’.

Prefiguring for us your holy Resurrection, loving Lord, you raised a dead man from the grave by your command, Lazarus, your lifeless friend, who by the fourth day had begun to stink. So too, as a symbol, you mounted the colt, O Saviour, borne as on a chariot and giving a sign to the nations. So too Israel your beloved offers you praise from mouths of sucklings and innocent babes, as they see you coming to the Holy City, O Christ, six days before the Passover.

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany and his Disciples approached him, saying, ‘Lord, where do you wish us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?’ But he sent them, saying, ‘Go to the village opposite and you will find a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him and say to the master of the household, ‘The Teacher says, ‘I am celebrating Passover with you along with my Disciples’’’.

**Same Tone.**

Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together, and taking up the Cross we all say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!’

**The same again.**

Great Entrance,

The reading is from the Prophecy of Sophonias.

Thus says the Lord, ‘Rejoice, daughter of Sion. Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your iniquities, he has ransomed you from the hand of your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You shall see evils no more. At that time the Lord will say to Jerusalem, ‘Be of good courage, Sion Do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst. The Mighty One will save you. He will bring joy upon you and renew you by his love. He will rejoice over you with delight, as on a day of festival. And I will gather your afflicted. Alas! Who has taken up a reproach against you? I will work for your sake at that time. And I will save her that was oppressed and receive her who was rejected, and I will make them a boast and famed in all the earth’.

The reading is from the Prophecy of Zachary.

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion! Shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, just and bringing salvation. He is meek and riding on beast of burden, on a young colt. He will utterly destroy the chariots from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. And the battle bow he will utterly destroy, and there shall be abundance of peace out of the nations, and he will rule over the waters as far as the sea, and from rivers unto the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. You shall dwell in your strongholds, prisoners of the congregation. For one day of your exile I will repay you double. For I have bent you Juda as bow for myself. I have filled Ephraim and I will arouse your children, O Sion, against the children of the Greeks, and handle you like a warrior’s sword. Then the Lord will appear over them, and he will go forth like a lightning bolt. The Lord Almighty will sound the trumpet and march forth in the tumult of his threat. The Lord Almighty will protect them.

At the Liti. Idiomel Stichera. Tone 1.

The All-Holy Spirit, who taught the Apostles to speak in other strange tongues, himself inspires the innocent children of the Hebrews to cry out, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes, the King of Israel’.

The Son and Word of the Father, like him without beginning and co-eternal, came today to the city of Jerusalem, seated on the colt of a dumb animal. The One whom the Cherubim cannot gaze upon with fear Children praise with palms and branches, as mystically they raise the song, ‘Hosanna in the highest to him who has come to save our whole race from error.’

Six days before the Passover your voice was heard, Lord, in the depths of Hell. From it you raised Lazarus, dead for four days, while the children of the Hebrews cried out, ‘Hosanna! Our God, glory to you!’

Tone 2.

As you entered the Holy City, Lord, seated on the colt, you were hastening to your Passion, that you might fulfil the Law and the Prophets, while the Children of the Hebrews, foreshadowing the victory of your Resurrection, met you with branches and palms, saying, ‘Blessed are you, O Saviour. Have mercy on us’.

Tone 2.

Glory to you, O Christ, who are seated on the throne in the highest and are now awaited with your precious Cross. And so the daughter of Sion is glad, the nations of the earth rejoice. Children hold branches, the Disciples tunics; and the whole inhabited world was taught to cry out to you, ‘Blessed are you, O Saviour. Have mercy on us’.

Six days before the Passover was to take place, Jesus came to Bethany to call back Lazarus who had been dead for four days and to proclaim beforehand the Resurrection. Women too came to meet him, Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, crying out to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died’. Then he said to them, ‘Did I not tell you before, one who believes in me, even though they die, will live? Show me where you have laid him’. And the Creator of all things cried to him, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’

And the usual Prayers in the Narthex.

Leave-taking of the Feast of Palms

**After the Opening Psalm, at Lord, I have cried, we insert 6 Stichera and sing the following Idiomels, doubling them.**

By John the Monk. Tone 8.

Rejoice and be glad, city of Sion, exult and be joyful, Church of God. For see, your King has come with justice, seated upon a colt, praised by children, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed are you, who have great compassion. Have mercy on us’. (**Twice)**

Today the Saviour came to the city of Jerusalem to fulfil the Scripture. And all took palms in their hands, spread their garments before him, knowing that he is our God, to whom the Cherubim cry without ceasing, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed are you, who have great compassion. Have mercy on us’. (**Twice)**

Loving Lord, who ride on the Cherubim and are praised by the Seraphim, you mounted, like David, on a colt. And children sang your praise in a manner fitting God. Jews unlawfully blasphemed you. Your sitting on a colt prefigured how the untamed nations were being changed from unbelief to faith. Glory to you, O Christ, who alone are merciful and love humankind. (**Twice)**

Rejoice and be glad, city of Sion; exult and be joyful, Church of God. For see, your King has come with justice, seated upon a colt, praised by children, ‘Hosanna in the highest! Blessed are you, who have great compassion. Have mercy on us’.

Loving Lord, who ride on the Cherubim and are praised by the Seraphim, you mounted, like David, on a colt. And children sang your praise in a manner fitting God. Jews unlawfully blasphemed you. Your sitting on a colt prefigured how the untamed nations were being changed from unbelief to faith. Glory to you, O Christ, who alone are merciful and love humankind.