Saturday. (Heb. 12:28-13, 8; J. 11:1-45). Whoever has a hardworking Martha – all-round good deeds, and Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus – an attentive and warm appeal to the Lord with all her heart, the Lord Himself will come to him and resurrect his Lazarus – the spirit, and release him from all the bonds of soul and body. Then a truly new life will begin for him, incorporeal in the body and unearthly on earth. This will be a true resurrection in the spirit before the future resurrection and with the body!

Week of Vai

(Phil. 4:4-9; John 12:1-18). Who was not present at the meeting of the Lord, when He solemnly entered Jerusalem as a king, and who did not then cry out: "Hosanna to the Son of David!" But only four days passed, and the same people, with the same tongue, cried out: "Crucify, crucify Him!" But what is there to marvel at? Do we not do the same when, after partaking of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, as soon as we leave the church, we forget everything, both our reverence and God's mercy towards us, and as before we give ourselves over to self-pleasing deeds, at first small, and then large, and, perhaps, even before four days, even though we do not shout to another: "Crucify!" but we ourselves crucify the Lord within ourselves. And all this is seen and endured by the Lord! Glory to Thy longsuffering, O Lord!

Monday. (Passion Week). (Mark 24:3-35). The Lord goes for a free passion. We also need to descend to Him. This is the duty of everyone who confesses that by the power of the passion of Christ he has become what he is now, and who still hopes to receive something so great and glorious that no one can even think of it. How to descend? Reflection, sympathy. Follow the suffering Lord in your thoughts, and by your meditation extract from everything such notions that could strike the heart and bring it to a sense of the sufferings endured by the Lord. In order for the latter to be accomplished more successfully, it is necessary to make oneself suffer through a sensitive diminution of food and sleep, and an increase in the labor of standing and kneeling. Do everything that the Holy Church does, and you will be a good companion to the Lord for suffering.

Tuesday. (Matt. 24:36-26:2). Now the people, the priests, and the authorities of the Jews hear the word of the Lord for the last time in the temple. And it was all-embracing; it embraced everything past, present and future.

It was enough just to listen to all this attentively in order to be convinced that He is the true Savior of the world – Christ, and to submit to His commandments and teachings. And to this day the reading of the chapters of the Gospel about all that happened on this day is the most effective means of reviving faith in the Lord, and, reviving in the Christian the consciousness of what he should be and what to expect, to stir up zeal and to show oneself to confess the Lord not only in tongue, but also in deed.

Wednesday. (Matt. 26:6-16). The Lord was silent on Wednesday and Thursday until evening, in order that evening to pour out a speech with the disciples and to the disciples, a speech similar to which there is nothing in all the writings, not only human, but also Divine. Now, at the direction of the Church, we hear only from the mouth of the Lord, so that they do not interfere with anointing Him with myrrh, because this served as a preparation for Him for death. Only death is before His eyes, the final mystery of His coming to earth for our salvation. Let us also immerse ourselves in the contemplation of this mysterious death, in order to extract from it the hope of salvation for our souls, burdened with many sins, and not knowing how to find peace for themselves from the anguish of an awakened conscience and the realization of the righteousness of God's judgment upon us, terrible and unwashed.