Vespers of St Sylvester, Abbot

Michael and I read Vespers of St Sylvester,  no longer in our defunct chapel, but at least before the icon corner - the Theotokos with the Infant Word enthroned with sundry saints, Apostles, the Forerunner and Holy Pontiffs; Our Lord Jesus Christ the Eternal High Priest; St Joshua the Patriarch; a rather uncanonical Greek-style depiction of the Trinity; the Synaxis of the Apostles; the Transfiguration; St Dominic in eastern style; and a western Crucifix - with its burning candles.  

To commemorate him who fled the world for the desert at the sight of an open grave revealing the corruption of all earthly vanities, we then ate some Belgian chocolate and drank a bottle of Chimay Grande Réserve while watching a doco about the great Churchill and his bodyguard...

Collect of Abbot St Sylvester:

Clementissime Deus, qui sanctum Silvestrum Abbatem, saeculi huius vanitatem in aperto tumulo pie meditantem, ad eremum vocare, et praeclaris vitae meritis decorare dignatus es: te supplices exoramus; ut, eius exemplo terrena despicientes, tui consortio perfruamur aeterno.  Per...

(Most clement God, Who didst deign to call holy Sylvester the Abbot, piously meditating on the vanity of this world before an open grave, to the desert, and to beautify him with the merits of an effulgent life: bending low we humbly pray, that, despising terrene things by his ensample, we may have fruition of Thine eternal company.  Through...)