Brief Overview of Lilyo

I'd like to make a post on Lilyo since I haven't posted anything in a while, as I don't have much time to work on the office itself either. Lilyo the longest office of the day. It should begin being said at midnight and contains four qawme (watches - like sentinel watches), each of which have a different devotion. This office has the most extensive structure, as it essentially is like four composite canonical hours (with the final watch being longest than the other three).

Lilyo Excerpt

The Syriac tradition has a rich poetic-prayer tradition, thanks to Mor Ephrem and Mor Yaqoob of Sarug. Many elements of the office are indicative of this, like the sooghito that the verses are alphabetically arranged by the first word of each verse.  The Syriac theological tradition lacks the precision of words the Greek and Latin traditions consist of, but more than makes up for it in its poetry and astute typologies. The excerpt below is demonstrative of this (take from the Lilyo of Sunday, which I'm currently working on).

Uploaded Ramsho of Sunday

I've just completed and uploaded the Ramsho of Sunday. With that, five offices of Sunday have been completed and only two remain to be translated (albeit Lilyo is substantially longer - numbering around 30 pages - and the 6th Hour numbers around 5).

Brief Overview of Ramsho

I have begun translating the Ramsho of Sunday. I thought it would be a point of interesting to just go over the basic office structure.

Safro of Sunday finally completed and uploaded!!!

So with great joy, I'm happy to announce I've completed a translation of Sunday's Safro. I've been reflecting on individual parts progressively since I've started, so I think I will just use this reflection to analyze one of the lines in the Bo'oto.

First Office Mazmooro

Safro gives an example of what a mazmooro is following the Etro of the Hoosoyo. Mazmooro can either refer to the mazmoore of King David (i.e. the canonical Psalms) or this short style of hymn.

Holy are You, Lover of Mankind

I'm drawing near to completing the Safro  of Sunday. The last qolo of the office is to the melody of Qadishat Rohem Nosho (Holy are You, Lover of Mankind). This qolo takes the trisagion (the one prayed before every office and at every liturgy - Holy are You, God, Holy are You, Strong One, Holy are You, Immortal One) and expands it by singing the glory of God relating to His compassion.

Shabah - Safro Qolo of Glorification

If one hasn't noticed already by the previous posts I've made about Safro (here's a general overview), the qole are very oriented towards the glorification of God - the opening Gloria (not a qolo) the Glory of the Mother of God, the Glory of St. Ephrem. This post is about the Shabah (plural imperative of glorify/praise), a qolo that rotates its verses with Psalms 148-150 and 117. Instead of giving a lengthy analysis of the Shabah I decided to just post my translation for Sunday's Safro below.