involved in the events celebrated in one of the feasts are celebrated on the day after. However, since Bright Week is devoted exclusively to the celebration of the Resurrection, and Thomas Sunday falls logically on the eighth day of the Resurrection (according to its biblical source), this day becomes the first Sunday on which these persons can be commemorated. Sunday of the Paralytic The Sunday of the Paralytic is the Fourth Sunday of Pascha, and recalls Jesus' healing of the Paralytic, as recounted in the Gospel reading for the day, John 5:1-15. The theme for this Sunday is the man who lay by the Sheep's Pool in Jerusalem for thirty-eight years. The first one to enter the pool after an angel troubled the water would be healed of his infirmities; but because the man was paralyzed, someone else always entered the pool before him. According to the Gospel account, Jesus had pity on the man, seeing he had no one to put him into the pool, and healed him. The Kontakion for this day asks Christ to raise up the souls of the faithful, "paralyzed by sins and thoughtless acts." The underlying symbolism of the feast is that mankind, being unable to raise itself from the fall by its own will or power, needed "some man" (i.e., the Son of Man, the Messiah) to come and raise it up. The feast of the Paralytic is unusual in the Pentecostarion in that it does not last a full week, but ends on the day before Mid-Pentecost. Mid-Pentecost The Wednesday following the Sunday of the Paralytic is the Feast of Mid-Pentecost This is a "feast within a feast", and propers of the Resurrection are combined with propers for Mid-Pentecost. The hymns of the feast speak of it drawing together the themes of Pascha and Ascension. The Apodosis (leave-taking) of Mid-Pentecost comes one week later, on the following Wednesday. Sunday of the Samaritan Woman The Sunday of the Samaritan Woman is the Fifth Sunday of Pascha, commemorating the Woman by the well, (traditionally known as Photina in Greek or Svetlana in Russian), as recounted in the Gospel reading for the day, John 4:5-42. Like the Paralytic, the Samaritan Woman is commemorated only on Sunday and half the week (in this case, the second half), the first half of the week being dedicated to the afterfeast of Mid-Pentecost. Sunday of the Blind Man The