Reflection: On the eve of the feast, the Church calls us to "leap up in anticipation" and "sound the cymbals". We celebrate the "Virgin's departure" with funeral hymnody that is filled with splendor because her death is betrothed to life.
Practice: Prepare your home or heart for the Feast of the Dormition by bringing in fragrant flowers, a custom that dispels grief with joy.
Menaion, August 14: Forefeast of the Dormition and Holy Prophet Micah
Glory…, Now & ever…: the composition of Anatolius, in the same tone—
“She who is more exalted than the heavens, more glorious than the cherubim and more honorable than all creation, who because of her exceeding great purity, became the receptacle of the ever-existing Essence, committeth her most holy soul today into the hands of her Son. In her are all things filled with joy, and He granteth us great mercy.
Troparion, in Tone IV—
Leap up in anticipation, O ye people, clapping your hands with faith, and assemble with love, all rejoicing today and exclaiming with splendor; for the Mother of God, whom we ever glorify with hymns as the Theotokos, will gloriously pass over from those on earth to those on high.”
“Let us sound the cymbals, let us cry out in hymns, celebrating the feast of the Virgin's departure; and let us give utterance to funeral hymnody with splendor, for the Mother of God, the ark all of gold, bound for splendor, maketh ready today to pass over from earth to the heavens, to a new and divine life.”
Menaion, August 15, Dormition of the Theotokos, Matins:
Ode IX
Canon I
Irmos: In thee are the laws of nature overcome, O pure Virgin, for thy birthgiving is virginal and death is betrothed to life. A Virgin giving birth and alive after death, O Theotokos, thou hast saved thine inheritance.
The angelic hosts were amazed, seeing their Master in Sion, bearing in His arms a woman's soul; for as befitteth a Son, He exclaimed to her in all-pure manner: Come, O pure one, and be glorified with thy Son and God!