Lord, You visit and accept sinners! And you raise the dead! And you command the waters of the sea, the winds of the sky! And the loaves grow miraculously in Your hands, giving a thousand-fold harvest - they are sown, reaped, baked and broken at the same time, in one instant! And You hunger to deliver us from famine! And You thirst for our thirst to be quenched! And you travel through the country of our exile, straining Yourself to return to us the calm, heavenly nature filled with sweets that we have lost! You shed Your sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane, so that we stop shedding our sweat in obtaining bread, and learn to shed it in prayers for worthy communion of the Heavenly Bread. The thorns that the cursed earth produced for us, You took upon Your head; Thou hast crowned and bruised Thy most holy head with thorns! We have lost the paradise tree of life and its fruit, which imparted immortality to those who ate. You, having prostrated yourself on the tree of the cross, became for us the fruit that bestows eternal life on your partakers. Both the fruit of life and the tree of life appeared on earth in the camp of our exile. This fruit and this tree are superior to those of paradise: they communicated immortality, and these communicated immortality and Divinity. Through Your suffering You have poured sweetness into our suffering. We reject earthly pleasures, we choose suffering as our lot, just to become partakers of Your sweetness! It is like a foretaste of eternal life, sweeter and more precious than temporary life! You fell asleep in the sleep of death, which could not keep You in eternal sleep, You - God! You rose up and gave us excitement from this dream, from the fierce sleep of death, gave us a blessed and glorious resurrection! Thou hast lifted up our renewed nature into heaven, and seated it at the right hand of the eternal, co-eternal with You, Thy Father! Our Lord! Grant us both on earth and in heaven to glorify, bless, and praise Your goodness! Grant us with a frank face to behold Your terrible, unapproachable, magnificent Glory, to behold It forever, to worship It and bliss in It. Amen.
See PASSION, LOVE OF AVERE