(Theological commentary on the content and meanings of Holy Monday)
"Behold, the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night, and blessed is the servant whom he finds quick, but unworthy again, whom he finds slow. Watch, my soul, do not give in to sleep, lest you be delivered over to death and shut out of the kingdom. But awake, crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is our God. Through the Theotokos have mercy on us.". With this glorious troparion, the sacred hymnographer introduces us to the devout atmosphere of Holy Week, urging us to prepare ourselves appropriately, in order to welcome the Bridegroom of our soul, Christ, and to take part in the spiritual wedding feast. This is, after all, the main goal of experiencing all the great events of Holy Week, our encounter with our suffering and risen Savior Christ!
On the first day of Holy Week we honor a great figure from the Old Testament, the Joseph the Pagan, the son of Jacob, whom his brothers, out of great envy, sold as a slave in Egypt (Gen. ch. 37-50). His long-suffering story is more or less known to us. His sensual wife Five-Fri, Pharaoh's courtier, since he could not seduce him
in the sin of adultery, he was slandered and thrown into prison. There in the terrible cells of the prison he endured his unjust passion with patience and fortitude. He prayed to the God of his fathers and hoped in Him for his freedom. After the explanation of Pharaoh's strange dreams, he became regent of the great country of Egypt. He met his brothers, whom he not only did not punish, but he benefited them and settled them in the most prosperous part of Egypt, so that they could live happily.
On this holy day, the wonderful figure of the All-Holy Joseph is presented, because according to the Fathers of our Church, he is a model and image of our Christ. Just as the Lord suffered unjustly because of the human wickedness of His own kind, so he suffered because of the wickedness of his brothers and showed, like Christ, immense injustice. He had all the power, like Christ, as the mighty ruler of the vast land of Egypt, to take revenge on his envious brothers, who threw him into such an unspeakable adventure. He also had the power to crush that sensual and deceitful Egyptian woman, who slandered him and unjustly threw him into prison. But instead of revenge, he returned mercy and kindness. This is why on this holy day we honor Saint Joseph.
Also on this day we commemorate the teaching event of dried fig by the Lord, which occurred according to the Holy Gospels on the day after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:19; Mark 11:13). Walking with His disciples on a road next to rows of fruit trees, palm trees, walnut trees and fig trees, Christ became hungry and approached a fig tree to collect some fruit. However, this particular tree, while it had rich foliage, had no fruit. Then Jesus said to the fig tree: "No fruit will ever come from you, and the fig tree withered away prematurely." (Matt.21:19). In this strange and illustrative way, the Lord wanted to teach His disciples and all of us the need to produce spiritual fruits. Also, the barren fig tree, according to a modern scholar and clergyman "which, through its rich leaves, symbolized the hypocrisy of the religious rulers, was not punished simply as a lifeless fig tree, but as
"It did not represent the Jewish nation at all, and especially the Jewish Synagogue, which only bore leaves, that is, it was simply limited to external types, and had no fruit to show. Jesus, coming to destroy a false hypocrisy, condemned it to eternal withering." (Th. Spyropoulou, The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ, Athens 1933, p.372).
The evangelist Mark reports that when the Lord rebuked the fig tree and it withered, its green leaves immediately fell off and the next day its roots also withered (Mark 11:21). The disciples, amazed by this miracle, did not seek to learn its deeper meaning, but were puzzled "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" (Matthew 21:20). For the first time they had seen the punishment of inanimate nature by their Master.
The Lord, taking the disciples' questioning as an opportunity, without explaining the symbolic meaning of the miracle, taught them about the great power of faith, which, when accompanied by inner fervor and without the slightest hesitation, can accomplish unimaginable things. He told them: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move." (Matthew 21:21). Our Church wants to transmit this faith to us as well.
The holy Fathers ordained that we commemorate on Holy Monday, on the one hand, the righteous Joseph and on the other hand, the event of the withered fig tree, so that we too may imitate the poor Joseph in the virtues of faith, patience and forbearance and avoid the barrenness of the barren fig tree. Let us adorn ourselves with virtues and produce spiritual fruits, in order to worthily and without hypocritical sentimentality follow the Lord in His saving Passion.
The Christian life is inextricably linked to the practice of virtues. Christian life is in essence the recovery of the original human nature, the recovery of the "according to the image" God of his creation. The wonderful and adorned with virtues personality of the Universal Joseph is a great example of longing for a return to our original, authentic nature. Of course, the real recovery was accomplished in the theandric person of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, Who deigned to voluntarily accept unjust sufferings, so that these would constitute the culmination of His redemptive work.
The hymnology of Holy Monday, as well as of the entire Holy Week, is truly wonderful, and aims to introduce the faithful to the devout and mournful atmosphere of the week of the Lord's Passion. The Matins service begins with the wonderful and well-known troparion "Behold, the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night...". The seats follow. "The passions are sacred...", "Invisible judges..." and "The beginning of the Lord's sufferings...", introductory verses of the Divine Passion. After the reading of the Holy Gospel, the famous canon is chanted "The bottomless, shifting sea..." poem by Saint Cosmas the Melodist. The well-known kontakion is interspersed "Jacob hated Joseph's poverty..." The most devout hexapostelario follows "I see your wedding hall, my Savior, adorned..."In the Aeneas, the famous troparions are sung, also poems by Saint Cosmas., “The Lord coming to the voluntary passion…”, “Having arrived, believers, the saving passion of Christ of God…”. In the wonderful troparions of the apostrophes, poems and those of Saint Cosmas, mention is made of the episode with the sons of Zebedee, who sought primacy in the kingdom of Christ. "Lord, to the mystery of
secret of the economy...", "Lord, the last wisdom of the familiar disciples, do not be like the nations, you said..." and the glorifying "The dragon, secondly, sought out Eve the Egyptian through words, and hastened to flatter Joseph with flattery...", refers to the event of the passion of Saint Joseph.
It is necessary in these holy days to correct the course of our lives, to turn to the path of Christ and to follow His steps towards the Passion. We must strongly oppose our evil self, which with its strong attractive habits towards sin, wants to lead us to loss and spiritual death. Otherwise, when we will not be able to overcome the old fallen man, which we hide within us, we will remain once again unparticipant in the gifts that flow from the voluntary Passion and the Sacrifice of the Cross of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and we will ultimately have the fate of the barren fig.
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