M.C. Steenberg
17-06-2008, 10:28 PM
Dear Mary,
The 'kneeling prayers' as said at the vespers of Pentecost (Sunday evening vespers) are as follows, from Archimandrite Ephrem's translation (found here (http://www.anastasis.org.uk/PentAll.htm)). You note that they do focus a great deal on the Holy Spirit, as you suggested.
AT VESPERS
The signal is given earlier because of the Service of Kneeling. After the Opening Psalm the Litany of Peace by the Deacon, if there is one, if not, by the Priest.
Deacon: In peace, let us pray to the Lord.
People: Lord, have mercy. And so after each petition.
Deacon: For the peace from on high and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.
For the peace of the whole world, for the welfare of the holy Churches of God, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord.
For this holy house, and for those who enter it with faith, reverence and the fear of God, let us pray to the Lord.
For all devout and Orthodox Christians, let us pray to the Lord.
For our Archbishop N., for the honoured order of presbyters, for the diaconate in Christ, for all the clergy and the people, let us pray to the Lord.
[For our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Family, her Government, and all in authority, let us pray to the Lord.]
For this city, for every city, town and village, and for the faithful who dwell in them, let us pray to the Lord.
For favourable weather, an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and temperate seasons, let us pray to the Lord.
For those who travel by land, air or water, for the sick, the suffering, for those in captivity, and for their safety and salvation, let us pray to the Lord.
For the people here present who await the grace of the Holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.
For those who bend their hearts and their knees before the Lord, let us pray to the Lord.
For us to be strengthened for the fulfilment of what is well-pleasing, let us pray to the Lord.
For there to be sent down upon us the his rich mercies, let us pray to the Lord.
For the bending of our knees to be accepted in his sight like incense, let us pray to the Lord.
For those who are in need of help from him, let us pray to the Lord.
For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger and constraint, let us pray to the Lord.
Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by your grace.
Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
People: To you, O Lord.
Priest: For to you belong all glory, honour and worship, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
At Lord, I have cried we insert 6 Stichera and sing the 3 following Idiomel Stichera, doubling them.
Tone 4.
Marvellous things all the nations saw to-day in the city of David, when the holy Spirit came down in tongues of fire, as Luke, God’s mouthpiece, declared. For he said: When Christ’s Disciples were assembled, there came a sound as of a mighty wind, and filled the whole house where they were sitting; and all began to speak with strange words, strange doctrines, strange teachings of the holy Trinity. (Twice)
The holy Spirit always was, and is, and will be, neither beginning nor coming to an end, but always ranked and numbered with the Father and the Son; life and giver of life; light and bestower of light; goodness itself and source of goodness; through whom the Father is known and the Son glorified and by all is known, one power, one order, one worship of the holy Trinity. (Twice)
The holy Spirit is light and life and living, spiritual spring. Spirit of wisdom, Spirit of understanding; good, right, spiritual, sovereign, cleansing faults. God and making divine; fire and proceeding from fire, speaking, working, distributing the gifts of grace; through whom all the prophets and Apostles of God with the Martyrs have been crowned. Strange tidings, strange sight: fire divided for the apportioning of gifts. (Twice)
Glory. Both now. Tone 6.
Heavenly King, Paraclete, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere, filling all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of life; come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of every stain, and, O Good One, save our souls.
Entrance, O Joyful Light, and the Great Prokeimenon.
Tone 7.
What god is great as our God? You are the God who alone works wonders.
Verse 1: You have made known your power among the peoples; with your arm you have redeemed your people.
What god is great as our God? You are the God who alone works wonders.
Verse 2: And I said, ‘Now I have begun. This change is of the right hand of the Most High’.
What god is great as our God? You are the God who alone works wonders.
Verse 3: I have remembered the works of the Lord, because I shall remember your wonders from the beginning.
What god is great as our God? You are the God who alone works wonders.
Then the Deacon says:
Again and again on bended knees, let us pray to the Lord.
People: Lord, have mercy.
And as we bend our knees to the ground and uncover, the Priest reads the prayers from the Bema, facing west, in a loud voice for all to hear.
Immaculate, undefiled, without beginning, invisible, incomprehensible, unsearchable, unchangeable, unsurpassable, immeasurable, long-suffering Lord, who alone possess immortality and dwell in unapproachable light; who made the heaven, the earth and the sea and all that was created in them; who grant to all their requests before they ask; we pray and beseech you, Master who love mankind, the Father of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who for our sake and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary, the Ever-Virgin and glorious Mother of God.
Teaching us first by words and later also showing us by deeds, when he underwent the saving Passion, he granted us, your humble, sinful and unworthy servants, an example to offer supplications by the bending of neck and knees for our sins and those committed in ignorance by the people. Do you, then, who are full of mercy and love for mankind, hear us on whatever day we call upon you; but especially on this day of Pentecost, on which after our Lord Jesus Christ had been taken up and been enthroned at your right hand, God and Father, he sent down on his disciples and Apostles the holy Spirit, who settled on each one of them and they were all filled with his inexhaustible grace and spoke in strange tongues of your mighty works and prophesied.
Now therefore hear us as we pray, remember us, humble and condemned, and turn back the captivity of our souls. Receive us as we fall before you and cry out, ‘We have sinned’. On you we have been cast from the womb. From our mother’s womb you are our God. But because our days have wasted away in vanity, we have been stripped of your help, we have been deprived of all defence. But confident of your compassion we cry, ‘Do not remember the sins of our youth and cleanse us of our secret faults. Do not cast us aside in the time of old age. When our strength fails, do not abandon us. Before we return to the earth, count us worthy to turn back to you and give heed to us with kindness and grace. Measure our iniquities by your acts of compassion. Set against the multitude of our offences the depth of your compassion. Look from your holy height, Lord, upon your people here present and who await from you rich mercy. Visit us in your goodness; deliver us from the oppression of the devil; make our lives safe with your holy and sacred laws. Entrust your people to a faithful Angel guardian; gather us all into your kingdom; give pardon to all who hope in you; forgive their sins and ours; purify us by the operation of your holy Spirit; destroy all the wiles of the foe against us’.
He adds this prayer:
Blessed are you Lord, Master almighty, who made the day light with the light of the sun and the night radiant with the rays of fire; who have granted us to pass through the length of the day and to draw near the beginnings of the night. Hear our supplication and that of all your people. And pardoning all of us our offences, voluntary and involuntary, accept our evening entreaties and send down the multitude of your rich mercy and acts of compassion on your inheritance. Wall us about with your holy Angels; arm us with the arms of justice; fence us with the rampart of your truth; guard us by your power; deliver us from every misfortune and from every trick of the adversary. Grant us also that both the present day with the coming night and all the days of our life may be perfect, holy, peaceful, sinless, without stumbling, without dreams, at the prayers of the holy Mother of God and of all the Saints who have been well-pleasing to you since time began.
Deacon:
Help us, save us, have mercy on us, raise us up and guard us, O God, by your grace.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
People: To you, O Lord.
For yours it is to show and mercy and to save us, O our God, and to you we give glory, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
Deacon: Let us all say, with all our soul and with all our mind, let us say.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Deacon: Lord almighty, the God of our fathers, we pray you, hear and have mercy.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Deacon: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your great mercy, we pray you, hear and have mercy.
People: Lord, have mercy. Three times. And so after the remaining petitions.
Deacon: Also we pray for our Archbishop N.
Also we pray for our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, the royal family, her government and all in authority.
Also we pray for mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, visitation, pardon and forgiveness of sins for the servants of God, all devout and Orthodox Christians, those who dwell in or visit this city and parish, the wardens and members of this church and their families; [and for the servants of God N. & N. (Here he may name those for whom he has been asked to pray), and all who have asked for our prayers, unworthy though we are.]
Also we pray for the blessed and ever-remembered founders of this holy church, and for all our brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest before us, and who lie asleep here in the true faith; and for the Orthodox everywhere[, and for the servants of God N. & N. (Here he may name those for whom he has been asked to pray), and that they may be pardoned all their offences, both voluntary and involuntary].
Also we pray for those who bring offerings, those who care for the beauty of this holy and venerable house, for those who labour in its service, for those who sing, and for the people here present, who await your great and rich mercy.
Priest For you, O God, are merciful, and love mankind, and to you we give glory, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
Deacon:
Again and again, on bended knees, let us pray to the Lord.
The Priest prays as before:
Lord Jesus Christ our God, who, while still present with us in this life, gave your peace to humankind, and ever grant the gift of the all-holy Spirit to the faithful as an inheritance which cannot be taken away, you sent down this grace today in a more manifest form to your Disciples and Apostles and gave eloquence to their lips with tongues of fire, through which we, every race of humankind, having received the knowledge of God in our own language by the hearing of the ear, have been enlightened by the light of the Spirit, delivered from the darkness of error and, by the distribution and supernatural force of the perceptible tongues of fire, have been taught faith in you and have been illumined to speak of you as God with the Father and the holy Spirit in one Godhead, power and authority.
Do you, then, the radiance of the Father, the unchangeable and unalterable stamp of his Essence and nature, the source of salvation and grace, open also the lips of me, a sinner, and teach me how I should and for whom I ought to pray, for you know the multitude of my sins, but your compassion will overcome their measureless number. For see, with fear I stand before you, having cast away despair of my soul into the sea of your mercy. Govern my life, by the ineffable power of your wisdom, you who govern all creation by a word, who are the fair haven of the storm-tossed, and make known to me the way in which I shall walk.
Grant to my thoughts the Spirit of your wisdom, to my folly the Spirit of understanding, with the Spirit of your fear overshadow my deeds. Renew a right Spirit within my inward parts and make firm the instability of my mind with the sovereign Spirit, so that guided each day by your good Spirit to what is profitable, I may be found worthy to do your commandments and always keep in mind your Coming, which searches out all that we have done. Do not neglect me, so that I become deceived by the corrupted pleasures of the world, but give me strength to yearn for the enjoyment of the treasures which are to come. For you said, Master, that whatever someone asks in your name they receive without restraint from your co-eternal God and Father. And so I a sinner at the coming of your holy Spirit implore your goodness, ‘The things that I have prayed for grant me for my salvation’. Yes, Lord, the loving and most generous giver of every benefaction, for it is you who give superabundantly more than we ask. It is you who are compassionate, merciful, who without sin became a partaker in our flesh and who in loving compassion bend down to those who bend the knee to you and became the atonement for our sins. Give your people, Lord, your acts of pity; hear us from your holy heaven; sanctify us by the power of your saving right hand; shelter us in the shelter of your wings; do not despise the works of your hands. Against you alone we have sinned, but it is you alone that we adore. We do not know how to worship a strange god, nor to spread out our hands, Master, to another god. Forgive us our offences and, accepting our supplications on our bended knees, stretch out to us all a helping hand. Accept the prayer of all as acceptable incense, rising up before your kingdom, above all goodness.
And he adds the following prayer:
Lord, Lord, who have delivered us from every arrow that flies by day, deliver us also from every deed that walks in darkness. Accept as an evening sacrifice the lifting up of our hands. Count us worthy also to pass through the stadium of the night untried by evils, and rescue us from every disturbance and fear which comes to us from the Devil. Grant our souls the grace of compunction and our thoughts concern for the examination at your dread and just judgement. Nail down our flesh with fear of you, and deaden our members that are on earth, so that, in the calm of sleep, we may be made radiant with joy by the contemplation of your judgements. Remove from us every unseemly imagining and harmful desire. Raise us up at the time for prayer strengthened in the faith and advancing in your commandments.
Deacon:
Help us, save us, have mercy on us, raise us up and guard us, O God, by your grace.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
People: To you, O Lord.
Priest:
By the good pleasure and grace of your only-begotten Son, with whom you are blessed, with your all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
Then Grant, Lord, this evening.
After which the Deacon:
Again and again, on bended knees, let us pray to the Lord.
The Priest prays:
Christ our God, ever-flowing Spring, source of life and illumination, co-eternal creative power of the Father, for the salvation of mortals, who fulfilled the whole dispensation with surpassing goodness; tore apart the indissoluble bonds of Death and the bars of Hell, trampling down multitudes of evil spirits; offered yourself as an unblemished oblation for our sake, giving your most pure body, intangible and inaccessible to every sin, as a sacrifice, and through this dread and inexpressible offering you granting us the grace of everlasting life. You descended into Hell, smashed the everlasting bars and showed the way up to those who sat below. With a bait of divine wisdom you hooked the author of evil, the dragon of the deep, bound him with cords of darkness in Tartarus and secured him with the unquenchable fire and the exterior darkness through your infinitely powerful strength. Glorious wisdom of the Father, who appeared to those in distress as a mighty helper and enlightened those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, Lord of unending glory, beloved Son of the most high Father, eternal light from eternal light, Sun of justice, hear us who entreat you and give rest to the souls of your servants who have fallen asleep before us, our fathers, mothers and brethren and the rest of our relatives according to the flesh and all our kinsfolk of the household of the faith, whose memory we too now keep, because in you is the might of all things and in your hand you hold all the ends of the earth.
Master almighty, God of our fathers and Lord of mercy, Creator of the mortal and immortal race and of every human nature that is brought together and again dissolved, of life and death, of our sojourn here and our translation there, you apportion times to the living and establish the moments of death. You lead down to Hell and you lead up. You bind with weakness and release with power. You dispose all things for our use and direct what is to come for our advantage. You give life by hope of resurrection to those wounded by the sting of Death. Master of all things, our God and Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of those far off upon the sea, who on this final, great and saving day of Pentecost revealed to us the mystery of the holy, consubstantial, co-eternal, undivided and uncompounded Trinity and the coming and presence of your holy and life-giving Spirit poured out in the form of tongues of fire on your holy Apostles, setting them as Evangelists of our true faith, revealing them as confessors and heralds of true theology; who have also been pleased on this most perfect and saving Feast to receive suppliant prayers of atonement for those who are immured in Hell, granting us great hopes that repose and comfort will be sent down from you to the departed from the pains which hold them, hear us, lowly and wretched, who entreat you, and give rest to the souls of your servants who have fallen asleep before us in a place of light, a place of green pasture, a place of refreshment, from which all grief, sorrow and sighing have fled away, and establish their spirits in the tents of the Just and count them worthy of peace and repose. Because the dead will not praise you, O Lord, nor do those in Hell have the freedom to offer you thanksgiving, but we the living bless you and implore you and bring before you atoning prayers and sacrifices on behalf of their souls.
And he adds this Prayer:
God, great and eternal, holy and lover of humankind, who have counted us worthy to stand at this hour before your unapproachable glory to hymn and praise your wonders, be gracious to us, your unworthy servants. Grant us grace to offer you without conceit and with a broken heart the thrice-holy hymn of glory and thanksgiving for your great gifts, which you have made us and always do so.
Remember, Lord, our weakness and do not destroy us with our iniquities, but in our humiliation show us your great mercy, so that fleeing the darkness of sin we may walk in the daylight of justice; and having put on the weapons of light we may persevere unassailed by any assault of the evil one, and that with boldness we may glorify you for all things, the only true God and lover of humankind. For indeed, Master and Maker of all things, truly great is your mystery: the temporary dissolution of your creatures and after this their restoration and repose to the ages. We give thanks to you for all things, for our entrances into this world and for our departures, which through your unfailing promise betoken for us beforehand our hopes of resurrection and unending life. Would that we may enjoy it at your future second Coming, for you are the author of our resurrection and the impartial judge who loves humankind of what we have done in life, the Master and Lord of our reward.
Through your supreme condescension you became a partaker with us in the same flesh and blood and in those passions of ours that are blameless by willingly submitting to temptation, and, possessing compassionate pity, having yourself suffered by being tempted, and, as you promised, have yourself become a helper for us who are tempted, and so you have also led us to dispassion. Accept therefore, Master, our supplications and entreaties, and give rest to all the fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and children of each, and to every other kinsman and relative, and to all the souls who have gone to their rest before us in the hope of resurrection to eternal life, and establish their spirits and their names in the book of life and in the bosoms of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and in the land of the living, for the kingdom of heaven, in the Paradise of pleasure, through your shining Angels introducing them into your holy mansions. With them raise our bodies also on the day which you have appointed in accordance with your holy and unfailing promises. There is therefore no death for your servants, Lord, when we go out from the body and come to you, O God, but a translation from sorrowful things to better and more desirable, and rest and joy. But if we have in anything sinned against you, be gracious to us and them, because no one is clean of defilement before you, though they last but a day, except you alone, who appeared sinless upon earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we all hope to obtain mercy and forgiveness of sins. Therefore, as you are good and love humankind, remit, forgive, pardon us our faults, voluntary and involuntary, in knowledge and in ignorance, manifest and unnoticed, in deed, in thought, in word, of all our actions and movements. Give freedom and respite to those who have gone before us and bless all of us here present, granting a good and peaceful end to us and to all your people, and opening to us the compassion of your mercy and love for humankind at your dread and fearful Second Coming, and make us all worthy of your kingdom.
He also adds this.
Great and most high God, who alone possess immortality and dwell in unapproachable light, who made all creation with wisdom, who made a separation between the light and the darkness and placed the sun to rule the day and the moon and the stars to rule the night, who have counted us sinners worthy on this present day to come before your face with thanksgiving and to offer you our evening worship. Direct our prayer, Lord, like incense before you and accept it as a sweet fragrance. Grant us also that the present evening and the coming night may be peaceful; clothe us with the weapons of light; deliver us from every terror of the night and from every deed that operates in darkness, and give us sleep, which you have given for the repose of our weakness, free from every diabolical vision. Yes, Master of all things, giver of blessings, may we, being moved to compunction on our beds, call to mind your all-holy Name in the night, and made radiant by the meditation of your commandments may we rise up with joy of soul to give glory to your loving-kindness, offering supplications and entreaties to your compassion for our sins and those of all your people. Visit them in your mercy at the prayers of the holy Mother of God.
Deacon:
Help us, save us, have mercy on us, raise us up and guard us, O God, by your grace.
People: Lord, have mercy.
Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
People: To you, O Lord.
The Priest, aloud:
For you are the repose of our souls and bodies and to you we give glory, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
Deacon: Let us complete our evening prayer to the Lord.
Help us, save us, have mercy on us and keep us, O God, by your grace.
That the whole day may be perfect, holy, peaceful and sinless, let us ask of the Lord.
People: Grant this, O Lord. And so after each of the following petitions.
Deacon: An angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies, let us ask of the Lord.
Pardon and forgiveness of our sins and offences, let us ask of the Lord.
Things good and profitable for our souls, and peace for the world, let us ask of the Lord.
That we may live out the rest of our days in peace and repentance, let us ask of the Lord.
A Christian end to our life, painless, unashamed and peaceful, and a good defence before the dread judgement seat of Christ, let us ask.
Commemorating our all-holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the Saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
People: To you, O Lord.
Priest:
For you, O God, are good and love mankind, and to you we give glory, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
Priest: Peace to all.
People: And to your spirit.
Deacon: Let us bow our heads to the Lord.
People: To you, O Lord.
The Priest reads this quietly:
Lord, our God, who bowed the heavens and came down for the salvation of the human race, look upon your servants and upon your inheritance; for to you the fearful Judge who love mankind your servants have bowed their heads and inclined their necks, not waiting for any human help, but awaiting your mercy and looking for your salvation. Guard them at every moment, during both the present evening and the approaching night, from every foe, from every hostile operation of the devil, and from vain thoughts and evil desires.
(Aloud): Blessed and glorified be the might of your Kingdom, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
At the Aposticha we sing the Idiomels in Tone 3.
Now the tongues have clearly become a sign to all: for the Jews, from whom came Christ according to the flesh, have become sick through unbelief and fallen from divine grace, and we from the nations have been counted worthy of the divine light, established by the words of the Disciples, as they declaim the glory of God the benefactor of all things; with them, as we bow our hearts with our knees, in faith let us worship, established by the holy Spirit, the Saviour of our souls.
Verse: Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Now the Advocate Spirit has been poured out on all flesh: for beginning with the choir of the Apostles, from them he has unfolded grace by participation to the faithful, and he confirms his mighty descent distributing the tongues in the form of fire to the Disciples, to the praise and glory of God. And so with hearts spiritually illumined and established in faith in the holy Spirit, we entreat that our souls may be saved.
Verse: Do not cast me away from your presence: and take not your holy Spirit from me.
Now the Apostles of Christ are clothed with might from above; for the Advocate, being renewed in them, renews them with mystical newness of knowledge, which they proclaim in strange voices and lofty words, teaching us to reverence the eternal, simple and three-personned nature of the God of all things. And so enlightened by their doctrines, let us worship the Father with the Son and the Spirit, imploring that our souls may be saved.
Glory. Both now. Tone 8.
Come, you peoples, let us worship the Godhead in three persons, the Son in the father, with the Holy Spirit; for the Father timelessly begot the Son, co-eternal and co-reigning, and the Holy Spirit was in the Father, glorified with the Son; one power, one essence, one Godhead, whom we all worship as we say: Holy God, who created all things through the Son, with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. Holy Strong, through whom we have come to know the Father, and through whom the Holy Spirit came into the world. Holy Immortal, the Advocate Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. Holy Trinity, glory to you.
Then Now, Master, the Trisagion etc., and the Apolytikion of the Feast three times.
Apolytikion. Tone 8.
Blessed are you, Christ our God, who revealed the fishermen to be most wise by sending down to them the Holy Spirit, and so through them catching the whole world in a net: Lover of mankind, glory to you!
Then the Priest gives the Dismissal:
May he who emptied himself from the bosom of the Father and took up our whole human nature and made it divine, and who after he had gone up again to heaven and sat down at the right hand of his God and Father sent down the divine, holy, consubstantial, co-eternal Spirit, identical in power and identical in glory, upon his holy Disciples and Apostles, and through him enlightened them, and through them the whole inhabited world, Christ our true God, at the prayers of his all-pure and all-blameless holy Mother, of the holy, glorious and all-praised Apostles, heralds of God, and of all the Saints, have mercy on us and save us through his own loving-kindness.
Reader: Amen.
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