CHEESE SUNDAY

THE CASTING OUT OF ADAM FROM PARADISE

ON SATURDAY EVENING
AT VESPERS

After the Opening Psalm, we read Blessed is the man, the first Kathisma.
At Lord, I have cried, we insert ten Stichera: six of the Resurrection in the Tone of the week from the Oktoichos, and the following four Prosomia from the Triodion:

Tone 6. Having set all your hope.

The Lord my Creator took me as dust from the earth, and with the breath of life he gave me a soul and made me a living creature. He honoured me as ruler on earth over all things visible and as a companion of the Angels. But Satan the deceiver, using the serpent as his instrument, enticed me by food, separated me from the glory of God and gave me over to the earth and to the lowest depths of death. But as Master and compassionate call me back again.
Wretch that I am, I have cast off the robe woven by God, disobeying your divine command, Lord, at the counsel of the enemy, and I am clothed now in fig leaves and in garments of skin. I am condemned to eat the bread of toil in the sweat of my brow, and the earth has been cursed so that it bears thorns and thistles for me. But, Lord, who in the last times were made flesh of a Virgin, call me back and bring me into Paradise again.
O precious Paradise, unsurpassed beauty, tabernacle built by God, unending gladness and delight, glory of the just, joy of prophets, and dwelling place of saints, with the sound of your leaves implore to the Maker of all to open for me the gates which I closed by my transgression, and may count me worthy to partake of the Tree of Life and of the joy in which I delighted when I dwelt in you before
Adam was banished from Paradise through disobedience and cast out from delight, beguiled by the words of a woman. Naked he sat opposite the place, lamenting ‘Woe is me!’ Therefore let us all make haste to accept the season of the Fast and obey the traditions of the Gospel, that through them we may become well-pleasing to Christ and once more receive Paradise as our dwelling.

Glory. Tone 6.

Adam sat opposite Paradise and, lamenting his nakedness, he wept, ‘Woe is me ! By evil deceit was I persuaded and robbed, and exiled far from glory. Woe is me ! Once naked in my simplicity, now I am in want. But, Paradise, no longer shall I enjoy your delight; no more shall I look upon the Lord my God and Maker, for I shall return to the earth whence I was taken. Merciful and compassionate Lord, I cry to you, ‘Have mercy on me who am fallen’.

Both now. Theotokion from the Oktoichos.

Entrance, O Joyful Light, and the Prokeimenon of the day, The Lord is King.

Aposticha in the Tone of the week from the Oktoichos, and then:
Glory. Tone 6.

Through eating Adam was cast out of Paradise. And so, as he sat in front of it, he wept, lamenting with a pitiful voice and saying, ‘Woe is me, what have I suffered, wretch that I am! I transgressed one commandment of the Master, and now I am deprived of every good thing. Most holy Paradise, planted because of me and shut because of Eve, pray to him who made you and fashioned me, that once more I be filled with your flowers.’ Then the Saviour said to him, ‘I do not want the creature which I fashioned to perish, but to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, because the one who comes to me I will in no way cast out.’

Both now. Theotokion. Same Tone.

Christ the Lord, my Maker and Redeemer, came forth from your womb, all-pure Virgin, and having clothed himself in me he freed Adam from the curse of old. Therefore with never-silent voices we cry to you as true Mother of God and Virgin with the Angel’s salutation, ‘Hail, Sovereign Lady, guardian and protection and salvation of our souls’.
Now, Master, Trisagion, Apolytikion, Virgin Mother of God, three times, and the rest of the Office of the Vigil.