The Catalog of Good Deeds: Prayers

Showing posts with label Prayers. Show all posts

The love of the Elder Paisios for the whole world is well known. The Elder has helped a whole host of people before and after his physical death.

But the question is from where did he receive his ability to help people and to perform miracles?

He received this heavenly power through his fervent prayers to God.

The following prayer of his was given to a convent which had asked the Elder for a prayer rule that could be used by the nuns in their evening vigils.

This directive was given to the nuns during the final years of his life.

The main emphasis of this prayer is his profound love for all of humanity.

This prayer can be used by every Christian believer since it takes in all the issues of life that need our prayers. Even the children can understand it easily since it is expressed in simple words. It can be used by families during their evening prayers.

Our Lord Jesus Christ:

Do not abandon your servants who live far away from the Church. May your love convict them and bring them back to you.

Lord have mercy on your servants who are suffering from cancer.

On your servants who suffer either from small or serious ailments.

On your servants who suffer from physical infirmities.

On your servants who suffer from spiritual infirmities.

Lord have mercy on our leaders and inspire them to govern with Christian love.

Lord have mercy on children who come from troubled homes.

On troubled families and those who have been divorced.

Lord have mercy on all the orphans of the world, on all those who are suffering pain and injustices since losing their spouses.

Lord have mercy on all those in jail, on all anarchists, on all drug abusers, on all murderers, on all abusers of people, and on all thieves. Enlighten these people and help them to straighten out their lives.

Lord have mercy on all those who have been forced to emigrate.

On all those who travel on the seas, on land, in the air, and protect them.

Lord have mercy on our Church, the bishops, the priests and the faithful of the Church.

Lord have mercy on all the monastic communities, male and female, the elders and eldresses and all the brotherhoods of Mt. Athos.

Lord have mercy on your servants who find themselves in the midst of war.

On your servants who are being pursued in the mountains and on the plains.

On your servants who are being hunted like birds of prey.

Lord have mercy on your servants who were forced to abandon their homes and their jobs and feel afflicted.

Lord have mercy on the poor, the homeless and the exiled.

Lord have mercy on the nations of the world. Keep them in your embrace and envelope them with your holy protection. Keep them safe from every evil and war. Keep our beloved Greece (we can add here the USA) in your protective embrace day and night. Embrace her with your holy protection defending her from all evil and war.

Lord have mercy on those who have been abandoned and have suffered injustice. Have mercy on families that are going through trying times. Pour your abundant love upon them.

Lord have mercy on your servants who suffer from spiritual and bodily problems of all kinds.

Lord have mercy on those who are despairing. Help them and grant them peace.

Lord have mercy on those that have requested that we pray for them.

Lord grant eternal rest to all those who have passed on to eternal life throughout the ages.

Source: http://stillwaterorthodox.org/2017/06/say-prayer-every-day-god-will-always-side-elder-paisios/

Each year we are invited once again to traverse the sacred days of the fast and come to that Week of all weeks - Holy Week. We are invited by the Church to take pause and reorient our crazy hectic schedule around "church time." Every year we are guided through this rich, profound and beautiful cycle of services where we participate in Christ's final days. If we pause enough we enter into the deep silence of the fear, isolation, sadness of the coming crucifixion of our Lord. Though the one Subject is Christ Himself, we come to find that it is us as well who become a vital component to these services. As we are remembering these events - Judas, the crowds, the Virgins awaiting the bridegroom, the harlot who anointed Christ's feet - we begin to see that we are just like these persons. We are the Virgins who are not ready for the bridegroom. We are Judas who so often are willing to sell Christ for the sake of our worldly gain, we are the disciples who deny our Lord, and we are the crowds who boldly proclaim "crucify him!" As a new mission we continue to take steps to fill out our liturgical cycle and this year we are adding the services for Monday through Thursday known as Bridegroom Matins.

The first three days of Holy Week are referred to as "the end". We have just laid our palm branches down into the silence of Christ's final days. Darkness and judgment are the theme for the first three days. This is centered around the the Gospel reading from Great and Holy Tuesday found in Matt. 24:36 - 26:2. This is the parable of the ten virgins. Here we are urged not to be like the five foolish virgins who were not prepared for the coming of the bridegroom. The troparion hymn sung on these three days:

Behold the bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given over to death, and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying: "Holy! Holy! Holy! art Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!"

Also another hymn:

Thy bridal chamber I see adorned, O my Savior, but I have no wedding garment that I may enter. O Giver of Light, enlighten the vesture of my soul, and save me.

As we enter into Holy Week we are overwhelmed with the sense that we have nothing to offer our Lord and that we have wasted our life and are asleep and that we have missed the coming of the bridegroom. It is only through the grace and mercy of our Lord's voluntary Passion that we are made worthy to enter. We hear this echoed on Monday evening:

How shall I, the unworthy one, appear in the splendor of Thy saints?

For if I dare enter Thy bridal chamber with them my garments will betray me: they are unfit for a wedding.

The angels will cast me out in chains.

Cleans the filth of my soul, O Lord, and save me in Thy love for mankind.

O Christ the Bridegroom, my soul has slumbered in laziness.

I have no lamp aflame with virtues.

Like the foolish virgins I wander aimlessly when it is time for work.

But do not close Thy compassionate heart to me, O Master.

Rouse me, shake off my heavy sleep.

Lead me with the wise virgins into the bridal chamber, that I may hear the pure voice of those that feast and cry unceasingly: O Lord, glory to Thee!

It is important to let the full weight of these services permeate us. Let the heavy truth of seeing ourselves as we truly are lead us to glorify Christ's passion and cause us to cry out as we will on Holy Friday, "show us also Thy Glorious resurrection!"

By Fr. Christopher Foley

A Prayer for Christ's Assistance and Thanks for His Mercies

St. Symeon the New Theologian:

But, O Lord, guide of those gone astray, the unerring path of those who come to You, turn us all around and place us before Your ladder, and direct our hands with Your own hand to take hold of it, and enable us to raise ourselves from the earth and to step onto the first rung, so that we may know that we have somehow, sometime, taken hold of something with our hands and have raised ourselves a little from the earth. For we are obliged to ascend, just a little, at first to You, in order that You, the good Master, may come down from so far away and unite Yourself to us. Show us, Master, the door at the forecourt of Your Kingdom, so that we may knock patiently at it until the gate should open to us by virtue of our voluntary death, and we enter within and knock one by one at the gates and open them. May You Yourself, hearing our groans and the beating of our breasts, hurry to come down from your high chambers, You the greatly compassionate and merciful God, that we may hear the sounds of Your all-immaculate feat and know that You are opening the innermost gates, closed to sinners, and drawing near us and saying: "Who is he who is knocking?" and that, answering with cries and tears, we may reply to You with trembling and joy: "We are, Master, we the unworthy, the wretched, Your cast-off and wicked servants, we who until now have been wandering astray among mountains and cliffs and ravines. We are those who have senselessly soiled Your holy Baptism, who denied our covenants with You. We are those who have fled away and even deserted voluntarily to Your enemy who plots against our souls. Now, though, having remembered You and Your love for mankind, we have run away from there and, weary with labor, have come to You in great fear and trembling.

Forgive and be not angry with us, Master, but with mercy and compassion for us wretched ones open to us, Lord, and do not call to mind our evils, neither bear rancour for our ingratitude, for we have stood long hours in knocking, nor misunderstand us, Your servants, lest, having been slighted, we turn backwards. We have grown weary beating on the doors to the forecourts of Your Kingdom. Open to us, You Who by nature love mankind, have compassion on us. For if only You open to us the door of Your mercy by a little, who will not shudder at seeing you? Who will not fall prostrate in fear and trembling and beseech Your mercy? Who, seeing You Who have ten thousand times ten thousand angels and a thousand thousand archangels and thrones and powers, abandoning the heights and coming down to us, and meeting and opening to us, and both welcoming us graciously and falling upon our necks and kissing us, who will not immediately wounded to the quick and undone as if he were dead? And his bones will be poured out on the earth like water, and he will weep day and night reckoning up the ocean of Your compassion and goodness, and reflecting the glory and splendor of Your countenance. Glory be to You, Who have arranged all things thus. Glory to You, Who have been well-pleased to be seen by and united with us. Glory to You, Who for the sake of Your great compassion are revealed and seen by us, You Who by nature are invisible even to the heavenly powers themselves. Glory to You, Whose mercy toward us is unspeakable, Who have deigned through repentance both to abide and to walk with us. Through the payers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Source: http://holycrossoca.org/newslet/0804.html

Our life is full of repetition. It makes us who we are. For example, we are alive because we repeat the basic function of breathing. Do we think about breathing? No! We just do it. So much of our day is filled by repetition. This morning you brushed your teeth, or bathed, as you have every day for the past many years. Teeth brushing has become a part of your life, a part of who you are. Now let’s look at prayer in the same light.

If prayer is a part of your life, you have chosen it primarily to fulfil the desire to connect with our Lord. Many of the Saints, when teaching about prayer, write in the same language as a physical fitness coach. They recommend consistent repetitive application, a good routine, focus and patience. They remind us not to be too concerned about the content of the prayer. Our Lord already knows our needs, our pains, our joys, and our weaknesses. The Saints teach us that the goal is not the words, rather to open our hearts so the Lord can enter and rest in there. In achieving that, we will enjoy His presence, His love, His warmth, His joy and His energy. We will feel peace. We will trust Him and leave everything in His hands. Suddenly the words will not really matter.

The question remains how to open our hearts. What about our own words? Sometimes your heart will overflow with something and with your own words you will speak with the Lord. That is wonderful, but impossible to maintain over time. Over time using your own words for prayer, you will fall into a routine and repeat the same things each day. That too is good, but others have written much better prayers. That is why most often we read prayers written by others.

In communal prayer and in private prayer, we have been taught to leave the actual words to the experts and focus instead on the condition of our heart to accept a visit from the Lord. Who are the experts? The experts are our Lord Jesus Christ Himself with the Lord’s Prayer, David who wrote the 150 Psalms, St John Chrysostom who compiled the Liturgy we use, Saints such as Basil the Great, Ephraim, Damaskinos, Cassiane, Nektarios and so many others who left us with an enormous wealth of material to use for prayer. Like good physical exercise, tooth brushing, or homework routine, we repeat these prayers, some daily, some weekly, and some annually.

We use the prayers of these Saints over and over and they slowly become our prayers, their words become our words because we dipped those words into our heart and sent them to the Lord as our own. In return, the Lord visits us and we connect to Him. Done! Repeat as regularly as possible! Finally, there is one little prayer that the Saints recommend for us to repeat constantly, all day, every day, wherever we are and whatever we are doing.

They say to repeat it like we repeat breathing. Breathing results in life for your body. Yes? Well then, breathing this tiny prayer gives life to your soul. The deeper and more slowly and carefully that you breath this prayer, the more life and health you will give to your soul, the more connected you will remain with the ultimate source of Life. “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me”.

Fr N. S.

Source: https://www.lychnos.org/why-do-we-repeat-so-many-set-prayers/

Today we lead such busy lives that many say, "I don't even have time for prayer. At the end of the say I am so tired. With Children and the trend of both parents working this is a common problem these days. The only solution is to make sure you have the right priorities in your life. To lead a balanced life you need to struggle to simplify it. First examine why it is necessary for a mother to work while the children are living at home. Is this a necessity or is it just to gain material things.

Elder Paisios advises:

It's better for a mother to be involved with the nurturing of her children... A mother [if she is not working a full time job] can speak to her children about Christ; she can read the Lives of the Saints to them. Thus, at the same time she will be occupying herself dusting off her own soul so that it will be spiritually shiny. The mother's spiritual life will then quietly help the souls of her children. Thus, her children will live happily, and she will be joyful because she will have Christ within her. If a mother doesn't find the time to say even the Trisagion, how can she expect he children to be sanctified?

When she does her housework, can't she pray at the same time? It was my mother who taught me to way the Jesus Prayer. When we were children and had done some mischief, and my mother was about to get angry with us, I remembering her saying, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." When she put the bread in the oven, she would say, "In the name of the Christ and Panaghia." And whenever kneading, or cooking, again, she constantly said the Jesus Prayer. In this manner, she herself was blessed, as were the bread and the food whe was preparing, and so were those who partook of it later.

I wonder if in today's world we appreciate the significance of a spiritual upbringing. The elders of our Church tell us the mother's traditional role is a most important one. Elder Paisios says, "The mother's devotion has great significance. If the mother has humility and fear of God, then family life is smooth." The challenge today with its materialistic orientation is to seek to simplify life so one parent can dedicate themselves to the nurturing of their children both physically and spiritually. Children are geared to learn by observation. You are the models they will begin their life with. Make that model as close to the image of God as is possible.

A good friend told me a story of his early child raising days. He had the habit of not going to Church each Sunday, but he instead stayed in bed and then getting up after his wife and children had gone to church to read the Sunday paper in peace. One day, is young son made the comment to his Mom, "I cant wait until I get as old as Dad. Then I won't have to get up and go to Church each Sunday. I can stay home and read the paper and relax." He over heard his son saying this and this woke him up. He realized he was setting a bad example for his son. From that day on he never missed a day in Church.

Source: http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.com.by/2013/07/more-on-raising-children-and-making.html

1. Prayer is a specific activity that must be a part of a person’s life. It is, as the catechism says, "a lifting of the mind and heart to God." It is a talking with God, and a listening to Him. It is communion with God in the most direct, experiential way.

2. Christians must pray. We cannot substitute anything in the place of prayer. We cannot think that prayer is "anything good that we do" in the sense of replacing the actual act of prayer about which Christ spoke when He said: "When you pray, go into your room and close the door, and pray in secret…" Although everything good done by man glorifies God, the specific activity of prayer must be retained and perfected. "If you are not successful in your prayer, do not expect success in anything. Prayer is the root of all." (Bishop Theophan)

3. When we Christians pray, we must be consciously aware of the fact that our prayer goes on "within God"; that in prayer we are already somehow "inside of God." We are not lonely, isolated creatures attempting by our prayer to call out in solitude across and unpassable abyss to a God "way out there." We are in God. The Holy Spirit is in us, making us Children of God in Christ, enabling us to call the Transcendent, All-Holy God, "our Father". "For you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you… for all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God…when we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is the Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words…" Romans 8.

4. Prayer is not merely the recitation of words. Prayer may begin by reading or saying the words of prayers. But a mere reading or saying of words, without feeling or attention, is not prayer. It is not even poor prayer. It is not prayer at all.

5. Prayer is learned only by praying. No one can teach another to pray. But a good way to begin to pray is to use the prayers of the prayer book. This is so because, since "we do not know how to pray," the Holy Spirit reveals in the prayers of [the Son and] the saints the proper form and content of prayer. In the prayers of the books — especially the Lord's Prayer — we not only pray truly by putting ourselves into the words of the prayers, but we also learn what we must pray.

6. The catechism classifies prayer in three types: asking [for ourselves in petition and for others in intercession], thanking, and praising. A fourth category can [also] be added: the prayer of questioning or complaining to God. To learn to come to God in every situation, and with each of the four categories operating all the time, is a very important achievement: the achievement of a prayerful life.

7. What may we ask for in prayer? For everything good; and nothing good is too small. For what should we thank [Him]? For everything. For what should we praise [Him]? For everything. About what may we question? About all things not understood. About what may we lament and complain? About all that is frustrating, confusing, and tragic in our lives. But in all things: thanksgiving and praise, for this is the essence of faith. And in all things: Thy will be done.

8. Prayer must be private, personal, and secret. It cannot be limited just to the liturgy ["common work" or services] of the Church. Strictly speaking, the liturgy of the Church is not merely a form of personal prayer, a form done corporately and openly, together with others. Liturgy is more than a prayer. It is gathering, being together, singing, celebrating, processing, announcing, teaching, listening, interceding, remembering, offering, receiving, having communion with God and each other, being sent into the world with an experience of something to be witnessed to. Its efficacy depends upon our personal prayer done alone in secret. The liturgy cannot be our only prayer. If it is, we should seriously question its meaning and power for us.

9. How can we begin to pray? Just by beginning. But how to begin, with what sort of methods? Everyone's way will be different, but the saints give two absolute rules: be brief, and be regular. These are the pillars of prayer. Brevity to ensure humility, to discourage despair, and to enable us to do what can reasonable be done. And regularity to build the rhythm of prayer into the rhythm of life as an unchanging element of our existence. It is a million times more effective and pleasing to God to have a short rule of prayer rigidly kept at regular times than to "do a lot" just any old time, whenever we happen to do it.

10. Suppose we cannot — or will not — be regular in prayer, not even with the shortest of rules? Is everything lost? Not at all. In this case we are told by our saints to take a small prayer or just a few words (like the Jesus Prayer, or "Lord, have mercy", or a line from a Psalm) and to say it as often as we can, whenever or wherever we happen to be. Anyone can do this, as it requires nothing but to do it, and it can lead us to union with God.

11. "Remembrance of God" is the purpose of prayer — to "walk in His presence", to stand before His Face", to be conscious of His Spirit in us making us His children. Remembrance of God is the way to keeping His commandments, and doing His commandments is our salvation and life.

12. What about sweet feelings, consolations, comforts, visions, images, sentiments, emotions, graces of special sort? Forget them all! They are not the purpose of prayer, not the purpose of Christian faith. If God wants to give them to us, we will get them. But we must not seek them or look for them. We must reject and doubt them if we think that we have them. This is the doctrine of the Orthodox saints. For faithful prayer has one singular goal: to allow us to accomplish God's will.

13. Prayer is in no way separated from good works and social action. When prayer is perfect and we see the Face of God in communion with Him in the depths of the Trinity, He shows us two things: He shows us Christ's Cross and our brother. True prayer teaches us, as the Elder Silouan of Mount Athos has said, that "our brother is our life." There is no touching God, no genuine prayer, which does not directly result for the one who prays in the sufferings of Christ for the love of creation.

14. If we are not willing to do the commandments of Christ and to take radical decisions and actions toward God, ourselves, others and the very world we live in, then we had better not even begin to pray. For in prayer, God will push us to do things, things our natural man might not want to do. To dare pray (as one Church father put it) and not to do what prayer will demand of us is to court insanity. If we are not ready to "put up" in our life, we had better "shut up" in our prayer. "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God" Hebrews 10:31.

15. "Young man, do not forget to say your prayers. If your prayer is sincere, there will be every time you pray a new feeling containing an idea in it, an idea that you did not know before, which will give you courage. Then you will understand that prayer is an education […]" (Dostoevsky). Prayer is a teacher. By praying, we are taught of God by God Himself. And one of the things that we learn is itself how to pray. "O Lord, teach me to pray: pray Thou Thyself in me" (Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow).

By Father Thomas Hopko

Source: http://www.stgeorgegoc.org/worship/prayer

One can understand much about a group through their music. I vividly remember the music when I once visited a Kingdom Hall with some Jehovah’s Witnesses. Many of their songs could be summed up as, “Jehovah’s mad and he’s gonna smite you unless you join our organization, cause this is the only safe place. So, convert lots of people, or Jehovah’s gonna smite you!” I was torn between bursting out laughing at how ridiculously obvious the Watchtower’s fearmongering is, or crying because I was surrounded by people who had swallowed this lie about God being a monster from Whom we need to be saved.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, our hymnography is also our theology. In it, I am constantly finding songs that speak of the goodness of God, His love, and the significance of different biblical and historical events. The songs essentially are the sermon, and many sermons can be derived from the songs.

Without further ado, here are several hymns from Theophany that explain the significance of Christ’s baptism and what that means to us (none of this was ever explained to me in my pre-Orthodox days).

Tropar of Theophany – Tone 1:

At Your baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, worship of the Trinity was revealed, for the Father’s voice bore witness to You, calling You His beloved Son and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of these words, O Christ God, Who appeared and enlightened the world – glory to You. (this hymn is repeated several times throughout the service)

Kondak of Theophany – Tone 4:

You have appeared today to the inhabited earth and Your Light, O Lord, has been marked upon us, who with knowledge sing Your praise. You have come, You are made manifest, the Light that no man can approach.

The Litija Verses – Bolharsky Tone 4:

He Who covers Himself with Light as with a garment has deigned for our sakes to become as we are. Today He is covered by the streams of the Jordan, though He has no need to be cleansed by them, but through the cleansing that He Himself receives, He bestows rebirth upon us. Without fire He casts anew, and without shattering, He refashions; and He saves those who are enlightened in Him, Christ our God the Savior of our souls.

John the Baptist saw You draw near, the one Who cleanses by Spirit and by fire the sins of the world, and he cried aloud in fear and trembling saying: I dare not touch your Immaculate Head. Instead, O Master, sanctify me by Your Theophany, O You Who alone loves mankind.

Christ is baptized He comes out of the waters, and carries up the world with Him. He sees the heavens opened that Adam has closed against himself and his descendants. The Spirit bears witness to the Divinity of Christ, for He hastens toward His creation; and a voice sounds from Heaven for it is from Heaven that He has come down to give testimony, and He is the Savior of our souls.

Samoholasen Tone 8:

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Today all creation is enlightened. Today all nature is glad, things of Heaven and things upon earth. Angels and men mingle with one another, for where the King is present there His army also goes. Let us run then to the Jordan. Let us all see how John baptizes a sinless and uncreated Head. Therefore let us cry aloud with one accord, echoing the voice of the Apostle: the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared, shining upon the faithful and granting them great mercy.

The Aposticha – Samohlasen Tone 2:

Seeing You, O Christ our God, drawing near to Him in the river Jordan, John the Baptizer exclaimed: “Why do You, Who are without defilement come to Your servant, O Lord? In whose name shall I baptize You? Of the Father? But You bear Him in Yourself! Of the Son? But You are Yourself this Son made flesh! Of the Holy Spirit? You know that through Your own mouth You give Him to the faithful.” O God, Who has been manifested, glory to You.

CANTOR: The sea saw it and fled, Jordan was driven back.

ALL: The waters saw You, O God, and were afraid. For the cherubim cannot lift their eyes upon Your glory, nor can the seraphim gaze upon You. But standing by You in fear, the first carry You and the second glorify You. We proclaim with them, O merciful Lord: O God Who has appeared to the world, have mercy on us.

CANTOR: What ailed you, O sea, that you fled? O Jordan that you were driven back?

ALL: Today the Maker of heaven and earth comes to the Jordan in the flesh. For baptism the sinless One asks, that He might cleanse the world from the error of the enemy, He Who is the Master of all is baptized by a servant, and He gives mankind cleansing through water. Let us cry aloud unto Him: O God Who has appeared to the world glory to You.

Verse – Tone 6:

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Seeing the Sun that came forth from a Virgin, asking for baptism in the Jordan, the shining Lamb that was born of a barren woman, [John] cried to Him in fear and joy: Sanctify me, O Master, by Your divine Theophany.

St Simeon’s Prayer:

Now let Your servant, depart in peace, O Master, according to Your Word. For my eyes have seen Your Salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all people. The Light of revelation for the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.

The Great Blessing of Water – Stichera – Samohlasen Tone 8:

The voice of the Lord upon the waters cries aloud saying: “Come all of you, and receiving the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of the fear of God, from Christ Who is made manifest.”

Today the nature of the water is sanctified and the Jordan is parted in two, it holds back the stream of its own waters, seeing the master wash Himself. O Christ our King, You have coming into the river as a man and in Your goodness You make haste to receive the baptism of a servant at the hands of the forerunner for the sake of our sins, O God Who loves mankind.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

At the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” You have come, O Lord, taking the form of a servant, and You Who are sinless ask for baptism. The waters saw You and were afraid. The Forerunner was seized with trembling and cried aloud saying: How shall the lamp illuminate the Light? How shall the servant set his hand upon the Master? O Savior Who takes away the sins of the world, sanctify both me and the waters.

Prokimen – Tone 3:

The Lord is my Light and my Salvation, whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear?

Source: http://www.orthodoxroad.com/hymns-from-the-vigil-service-for-theophany/

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