Sunday Readings

Apostolic Reading – Romans 13:11-14:4

Gospel – Matthew 6:14-21

Hymns: See our Church’s website for Audio Recordings: holycrossmelkite.org/hymns

Troparion of the Resurrection (Tone 4)

The women disciples of the Lord, having learned from the angel the joyful announcement of the resurrection, and having rejected the ancestral sentence, proudly told the apostles: Death is despoiled. Christ God is risen, bestowing 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.

Kondakion of Cheese-fare (Tone 6)

O You who guide men toward wisdom, and give them intelligence and understanding, instructor of the ignorant and helper of the poor, strengthen and enlighten my heart, O Lord, give me word, O Word of the Father, for behold I will not refrain my lips from crying out to You: O merciful One, have mercy on me who have fallen.

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 to St. Paul to the Romans (13:11-14:4).

Brethren, now our salvation is nearer than when we came to believe. The night is far advanced: the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly as in daytime, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the flesh, pay no attention to its lusts. But whoever is weak in faith, receive him without arguing about opinion. For one believes he may eat all things but another who is weak, let him eat vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who does not; and let not the one who does not eat judge the one who does, for God has received him. Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls but he will stand, for God is able to make him stand.

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 (6:14-21)

Forgiveness & Fasting

The Lord said, “If you forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their offenses, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, who disfigure their faces in order to appear to men as fasting. Amen, I say to you they have had their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not be seen by men to fast, but by your Father, who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where worm and rodent consume, and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither worm nor rodent consumes, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.”