Fourth Sunday of Pascha: Sunday of the Paralytic  16 / 29 April

• Vigil service: Saturday 28 April 6 p.m.
• Divine Liturgy: Sunday 29 April 10 a.m.

Resurrection Tone 3: Let the heavens be glad; let earthly things rejoice; * for the Lord hath wrought might with His arm. * He hath trampled down death by death; * the first-born of the dead hath He become. * From the belly of Hades hath He delivered us * and Hath granted to the world great mercy.

Kondak of the Sunday of the Paralytic, Tone 3:  As of old Thou didst raise the paralytic, O Lord, by Thy Divine presence, raise my soul which is paralysed grievously by all manner of sins and unseemly deeds, that being saved I may cry out: O compassionate Christ, glory be to Thy power.

Kondak of Pascha, Tone 8: Though Thou didst descend into the grave, O Immortal One, yet didst Thou destroy the power of Hades, and didst arise as victor, O Christ God, calling to the myrrh-bearing women, Rejoice, and giving peace unto Thine Apostles, O Thou Who dost grant resurrection to the fallen.

JESUS HEALS THE PARALYTIC BY THE POOL

Great is the profit of divine Scriptures, and all sufficient is the aid which comes from them …for the divine oracles are a treasury of all manner of medicines. Whether it be needful to quench pride, to lull passion to sleep, to tread under foot the love of money, to despise pain, to inspire confidence, to gain patience – in the Scriptures we may find abundant resource. For what man of those who struggle with long poverty or who are nailed by a grievous disease will not, when he reads the passage before us, receive much comfort? Since this man had been a paralytic for thirty eight years, and he saw others delivered each year, and himself bound by his disease, not even so did he fall back and despair, though in truth not merely despondency for the past, but also hopelessness for the future was sufficient to overstrain him …Yes, Lord, he says, but I have no man …to put me in the pool. What can be more pitiable than these words? …Do you see a heart crushed through long sickness? Do you see all violence subdued? …He did not curse his day …but replied gently …Yes, Lord; yet he did not know who it was who asked him.

St. John Chrysostom. Homily XXXVII on John V, 1. B#58, p. 128

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