Apostolic Reading – Gal 1:11-19  

Gospel – Mt 2:13-23

Troparion of the Resurrection (Tone 7)

You destroyed Death by Your cross. You opened paradise to the thief. You changed the weeping of the myrrhbearers, and commanded Your apostles to proclaim that You, O Christ God, have risen, granting to the world great mercy.

Troparion of the Holy Cross (Tone 1)

O Lord, save your people and bless your inheritance, granting peace to the world. And preserve your community by the power of your Cross.

Troparion of Holy Joseph (Tone 2)

O Joseph, proclaim to David, the ancestor of Christ our God, the great miracles you have witnessed: you have seen the Virgin with child, given praise with the shepherds, adored with the wise men, and an angel of the Lord has appeared to you. Intercede with Christ God that He may save our Souls

Kondakion of the Preparation of the Nativity of our Lord (Tone 3)

Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent in Essence; and the earth presents a cave to the Inaccessible. The angels with the shepherds sing His glory, and the Wise Men with the Star travel on their way, for to us is born a New Child, who is God from all eternity

Prokimenon

Sing praise to our God, sing praise! Sing praise to our King, sing praise!

Stichon

All you peoples, clap your hands! Shout to God with cries of gladness!

Reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians (1:11-19)

Brethren, I give you to understand that the Good News that was announced to you by me is not of man. For I did not receive it from man, nor was it taught to me [by man], but I received it by a revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of the way I lived before in Judaism: how I persecuted the Church of God and ravaged it beyond measure. And I advanced in Judaism above many of my contemporaries in my nation, showing much more zeal for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased him who from my mother’s womb set me apart and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately, without taking counsel with flesh and blood and without going up to Jerusalem to those who were appointed apostles before me, I retired into Arabia and again returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother.

Alleluia

In you, O Lord, I have hoped: Let me never be put to shame.

In your justice, save me and deliver me.

Stichon

Be for me a protecting God, a sheltering house to save me.

The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew the Evangelist (2:13-23)

When the Magi had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying, “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and remain there until I tell thee. For Herod will seek the child to destroy him.” So, he arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and withdrew into Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod; that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Then Herod, seeing that he had been tricked by the Magi, was exceedingly angry; and he sent and slew all the boys in Bethlehem and all its neighborhood who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had carefully ascertained from the Magi. Then was fulfilled what was spoken through Jeremias the prophet, “A voice was heard in Rama, weeping and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are no more.” But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” So, he arose and took the child and his mother, and went into the land of Israel. But hearing that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there; and being warned in a dream he withdrew into the region of Galilee. And he went and settled in a town called Nazareth; that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”