The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple
Submitted by Dirk Gently on February 02 2000 at 00:04:34
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Here's some of the hymnography for February 2 as sung in my home congregation. (Feb. 2 is exactly 40 days after the birth of Christ.) * * * * * Today let the gate of heaven be opened; for the Word of the Father who is without beginning, having taken a beginning in time, not separating from his Godhead, is offered by his own will, by a virgin Mother as a child forty days old in the Mosaic Temple; and the priest, his servant, receiveth him in his arms, crying with joy, "Now lettest thou me depart, for mine eyes have beheld thy salvation." Wherefore, O thou who didst come into the world to save mankind, O Lord, glory to thee. Search the books, as Christ our God said in the Gospels; for there we shall see him born and wrapped in swaddling clothes, a suckling babe feeding on milk; accepting circumcision, borne in the arms of Simeon, and appearing to the world, not in fancy or imagination, but in truth. Wherefore, let us shout to him, saying, "O God before eternity, glory to thee." Verily, the Ancient of Days becometh a babe for my sake; and the all-pure God shareth in the impure to save me in the flesh which he took from the Virgin. And Simeon, having been made confidant to these mysteries, knew him as God appearing in the flesh. Wherefore, he kissed him; for he is Life; and the old man cried with joy saying, "Lettest thou me depart; for I have beheld thee, O Life of all." O Christ God, who willed today to lie in the hands of the old man as thou didst ride in the chariot of the cherubim, deliver us from the woe of passions, reclaim us who praise thee, and save our souls. |