Bonovox

GREAT AND HOLY MONDAY

The first characteristic service of Passion Week itself is the Morning Service of Great and Holy Monday, which sets the pattern for the Morning Services of Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday as well. This is often called the ‘Service of the Bridegroom’ (nymphios), Who is, of course, Jesus.

The Gospel according to St Matthew (MT 25:1-13) is the inspiration for the thematic troparion of these services: ‘Behold! The Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night, and blessed is the servant whom He finds keeping watch. But worthless is the one whom He finds being lazy. So beware, my soul, that you not be dragged down by sleep, lest you be given over to death and shut out of the Kingdom. Rather, rise quickly and cry out: “Holy! Holy! Holy are You, Lord! Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us!” ’

The Typikon directs that this service be chanted around 1:00 AM, although this is not borne out in practice except in monasteries, and not in all of them. A few parishes in Russia did the same, according to S.V. Bulgakov, at least before the Communist Revolution in 1917.

It is no small irony that the concept of the ‘watchful servant’ is more honored in the breach than in the observance, at least liturgically. Perhaps the Bridegroom does indeed come ‘in the middle of the night’, but we find that most inconvenient. Since we know that we will, most likely, ‘be dragged down by sleep’, many of us reschedule this service to the early evenings of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of Passion Week. But why couldn’t we come to church? What else would we be doing in the wee hours of those mornings? Sleeping? Probably. Sinning even? Perhaps. But the whole point here is not to yield to sleep, but to ‘rise quickly and cry out... “Have mercy on us!”’

In many places, this distortion of liturgical time -- which is, ideally, ‘real time’­ -- goes a step farther by also displacing the Evening Services with the communion of the Presanctified Gifts, scheduling them in the mornings. The distinction between ‘real time’ and its opposite (whatever that may be called) is becoming more important in this age of computerized simulation, video recording, and instant replay, and we often feel the intuitive need to reclaim something of the normal passage of time. If we expect to be in church both morning and evening, anyway, why would we not serve the Morning Services in the Morning (even if a little later than 1:00 AM) and the Evening Services in the evening? Especially regarding our damaged sense of liturgical time, we are in need of some serious reforms.

It’s been said -- and taught in seminaries – that the reversal of liturgical time during Passion Week is a symbol of creation’s disorder in the face of the death of the Son of God. But this is a romantic and sentimental excuse for our liturgical decadence. We can see, for example, that this explanation is never offered when the Morning Service of ordinary Sundays is served at 7:00 PM on Saturday evenings. This is purely a matter of convenience for people who think that we must serve a two-hour ‘vigil’ (with a severely abridged Morning Service) on Saturday night rather than a full version of the Evening Service appropriate for that time, and then serve the Morning Service on Sunday morning where it belongs – if we serve it at all.

Perhaps we can hope that, as we progress in our understanding of the holy Church's wisdom in molding human psychology to the will of God, we will someday see the value of ‘rising early to pray at (His) holy temple’ (Triodion) and of fasting through the day in anticipation of our communion of the Presanctified Gifts in the evening.

We need to be aware that the still common practice of serving the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in the morning is specifically intended to make it unnecessary for us to refrain from eating all day. Restoring the Presanctified liturgy to its proper time was a good idea, since it preserved the connection between the eucharistic and ascetic fasts, but even that is frustrated by the occasionally encountered ‘dispensation’ to eat breakfast and lunch on days when we intend to receive the Lord’s presanctified Body and Blood in the evening. We must strive to do better.

The Bridegroom Whom we meet on these days wears no festive crown of flowers and jewels, no splendid robes as He goes to His wedding on Golgotha. In perhaps the most poignant paradox of our ikonographic tradition, the ikon usually venerated on these days depicts the Lord of Glory, thorn-crowned and bloody, wrapped in the purple cloak of a mocking Praetorian guardsman; this ikon is titled 'The Bridegroom' or 'Utter Humiliation'.

The prophet foretold this: ‘Who is this coming from Bozrah, with His garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, mighty in His strength? “It is I, speaking righteousness, pronouncing the judgement of a Savior.”

‘Why are Your garments red, like those of one who has just come from treading the winepress? “I trod the winepress until it was full, and from the nations, no man was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and crumbled them like clods of earth, and I drew down their blood into the earth. For the day of retribution is upon them, and the year of redemption is here. I looked, but there was no one to help Me, and I realized as well that no one would give Me support. So My own arm rescued them while My anger was there. Then I trampled them in My fury, and I drew down their blood into the earth. I remembered the mercy of the Lord” ’ (IS 63:1-7; cf PS 2, PS 73:12).

How great is God’s love for us! Not only does He crush the enemies of our salvation, but He is merciful in His just retribution. He is able to save some by punishing them, and others by rescuing them, and He will save us all if only we will accept the salvation He offers us through His Son, our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is true: our Savior accomplished His work of salvation alone, slaughtering the enemies of our salvation yet shedding His own blood to save us. He alone is the Hope and Comfort of the human soul. The human blood staining Christ's garment as He stands before Pilatus and the mob is not only symbolically that of His vanquished foes, but -- most importantly -- that blood of divine vengeance is His own divine, most precious blood, ‘shed for the life of the world’ (Divine Liturgy of St Basil) and for its salvation, and which still nourishes us in the eucharistic Mystery.

But, in a sense, that blood is also our own thoroughly human blood, by virtue of Jesus Christ's taking a place among us and atoning for our sins, although He is sinless; His blood justified us, the unjust (ROM 5:6-11). Jesus is ‘the Lamb of God’, and it is His blood which ‘takes away the sins of the world’ (JN 1:29; cf Great Doxology); His precious blood redeemed us whose blood was an unacceptable offering and ineffective to redeem us.

His unique sacrifice of Himself on the cross truly saved us. He had no need of salvation, but in His compassion for the human race created in His image, ‘He took up *our* infirmities and bore *our* sorrows....He was pierced for *our* transgressions, He was crushed for *our* iniquities; the punishment which brought us peace was imposed on Him, and by His wounds, we are healed....the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all’ (IS 53:3-6).

The other hymn most characteristic of the Bridegroom Service is the Exaposteilarion: ‘I see Your bridal chamber adorned, my Savior, but I have no wedding garment that I may enter there. Make radiant the garments of my soul, O Giver of Light, and save me!’ We sing this hymn with all compunction and tenderness as we kneel in the darkness, with faith in our Savior's unfailing love for us. We are reminded once again of our baptismal joy, since we must inevitably call to mind the hymn sung as a new Christian emerges from the waters of rebirth and is clothed in a new white robe: ‘Christ our God, You robe Yourself with light as with a garment; grant me a robe of light!’(Service of Baptism; cf PS 103:2).

All of us once possessed the new white garment which would gain us admittance to the ‘wedding supper of the Lamb’, but we have sullied it with our shameful sins. This garment is the symbol of our moral condition, the state of our souls, as we contemplate this divine Bridegroom. How clean is our wedding garment? Or is it easier for us to remark how dirty it is? ‘That fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he added, “These are the true words of God”’ (REV 19:8-9).

Lord, keep us pure in our lives, pure as the white garment entrusted to us at Baptism, so that we will watch faithfully for Your coming, and be fit to enter the everlasting wedding feast in Your Kingdom.