Holy Weekend ~ Palm Sunday ~ Watching for Christ the Bridegroom

Palm Sunday: we hold our Palms or Pussy Willows throughout 

the service, we too standing to welcome and worship the Lord.

Fittingly, as so many who welcomed and worshiped the Lord

abandoned Him in His Passion,

we ended the day with the first of the Bridegroom Matins.
The cry to awake, to watch, to wait for Christ is heard,

deeply, beautifully, prayerfully with great expectation

but also with the most important of warnings as

we are weak, we fall asleep, we forget to 

have enough oil to light our lamps, 

watching for Christ our 

Beloved Bridegroom.

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy is the servant whom he shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, oh my soul. Do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou O God.

Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us.

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May the Lord carry us weak ones to Pascha.