Great and Holy Tuesday
-
Great and Holy Tuesday is the second day of Great and Holy Week - the final week before the feast of Pascha. During the days of Great and Holy Week, we follow the events in the life of our Savior from his entry into Jerusalem to his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday.
The Gospel at Matins (Matthew 22:15 - 23:30) recounts the attempts of the Pharisees and Sadducees to trap the Lord Jesus into making statements which they could use against him; and our Lord's response. After telling the crowd to follow the teachings of their leaders, but not their actions, he makes his own denunciation of those leaders: "Woe, you scribes and Pharisees!"
In the kontakion, we meditate on the sterility of the barren fig tree, and the likelihood that if we do not bear fruit for God, we will be kept out of the coming wedding feast. This subject is continued throughout the day's hymns. At the end of the canon, we sing (slowly and solemnly) the Hymn of Light, "I see your bridal chamber", to a special melody of its own.
At the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the reading from Exodus tells of the finding of the baby Moses in the waters of the Nile River by the daughter of Pharaoh.
In the long reading from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (24:36 - 26:2), our Lord continues his discourse about the end of the world. He tells the parable of the ten bridesmaids who continually awaited the coming of their Master with alertness, their lamps burning through the darkness. The foolish ones went to sleep, assuming they would have enough time to prepare at the last minute. But the Bridegroom came during the night, rewarding those who kept watch for Him and casting out those who wasted the opportunity to prepare to meet him.
We hear the parable of the talents (a talent being a quantity of precious metal, rendered as numbers of silver coins in the New American Bible translation), and describes the final judgment. In the closing verse, he says: "You know that in two days' time it will be Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified."
Adapted from Great and Holy Friday: Metropolitan Cantor Institute.