![]() ![]() The women with spices came early at dawn to anoint Thee. Let me live, that I may praise Thee, and let Thy ordinances help me (119.175). The mind is affrighted at Thy dread and strange burial. I long for Thy salvation, O Lord, Thy law is my delight (Ps 119.174). As the reading progresses the Praises become shorter, and gradually more concentrated on the final victory of the Lord, thus coming to their proper conclusion: It is this divine human love which is contemplated and praised over the tomb of the Savior. There is in the person of Jesus Christ the perfect unification of the perfect love of man toward God and the perfect love of God toward man. The Praises, as the verses are called, glorify God as “the Resurrection and the Life,” and marvel at his humble condescension into death. This particular psalm is the verbal icon of Jesus, the righteous man whose life is in the hands of God and who, therefore, cannot remain dead. In place of the regular psalm reading the entire Psalm 119 is read with a verse praising the dead Saviour chanted between each of its lines. The angel standing by the grave cried out to the women: Myrrh is proper for the dead, but Christ has shown himself a stranger to corruption. When Thou didst descend to death O Life Immortal, Thou didst slay hell with the splendor of Thy Godhead! And when from the depths Thou didst raise the dead, all the powers of heaven cried out: O Giver of Life! Christ our God! Glory to Thee! They begin in the normal way with the singing of God is the Lord, the troparion The Noble Joseph, and the following troparia: The Matins of Holy Saturday are usually celebrated on Friday night. ![]() The noble Joseph, when he had taken down Thy most pure body from the Tree, wrapped It in fine linen and anointed It with spices, and placed It in a new tomb (Troparion of Holy Saturday). Then, after the Our Father, while the people sing the troparion of the day, the priest circles the altar table with the winding-sheet carried above his head and places it into the tomb for veneration by the faithful. Thou hast put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep (Ps 88.6).Īfter more hymns glorifying the death of Christ, while the choir sings the dismissal song of Saint Simeon, the priest vests fully in his dark-colored robes and incenses the winding-sheet which still lies upon the altar table. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me (Ps 22.1). They divided my garments among them and for my raiment they cast lots (Psalm 22.18). The prokeimena and alleluia verses are psalm lines, heard often already in the Good Friday services, prophetic in their meaning: An epistle reading from First Corinthians (1.18–31) is added, and the Gospel is read once more with selections from each of the four accounts of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. After the entrance with the Gospel Book and the singing of Gladsome Light, selections from Exodus, Job, and Isaiah 52 are read. Vespers begins as usual with hymns about the suffering and death of Christ. ![]() In English this icon is often called the winding-sheet. ![]() Also a special icon which is painted on cloth (in Greek, epitaphios in Slavonic, plaschanitsa) depicting the dead Saviour is placed on the altar table. It is usually celebrated in the mid-afternoon to commemorate the burial of Jesus.īefore the service begins, a “tomb” is erected in the middle of the church building and is decorated with flowers. The first service belonging to Holy Saturday-called in the Church the Blessed Sabbath-is the Vespers of Good Friday. ![]()
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