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The Fourth Sunday of Lent

Third before Easter

Today we honor the Lord as the true image of the Father.

At vespers

On Saturday evening, at the incense psalms, these idiomela, in Tone VI:

Today, O Christ, we feast you as the perfect image of the Father, * for your total being inheres in his paternal substance, * just as brightness comes from light and water from its source. * Those who behold you, O saviour, * behold all that belongs to the Father: * The fulness of God found fully also in you, * for the form and divinity of the Father are also your very being.

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At the conclusion, the following troparion, in Tone II:

O God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ! * He is your perfect image and likeness. * And you, O divine Spirit, by your transforming power make us like him, * that we, too, may reveal the eternal God to all the world by how we live.

At matins

At the beginning of the morning office, the troparion as given above at vespers.

Then, this sessional hymn, in Tone II:

Open wide our inner eyes, O Christ, * that, in contemplating you, * we may gain some insight into the person of your Father. * For by gazing on you, the image, * we come to know the original, your Father, * seeing him in you, after a fashion, * for the image is the same as the prototype, * though it also differs from it.

At Psalm 51(50), the usual lenten troparia, in Tone VIII.

Kondakion, Tone VII:

Willingly do we risk believing in you, O Christ, * for we believe in the one God, * and you have done the works of God for all to see, * since you are the one sent by God, * and you alone, Lord Jesus, * can keep our hearts from being troubled. * Through you are we enabled to approach the Father, * for you are the one who prepared for us a lasting fellowship with him.

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