Resurrection Propers (and Office Propers in General)

There is great confusion amongst Maronites as to where do we get our seasonal propers from for the office. As I have mentioned previously, this is an erroneous assumption in itself. We do not have seasonal propers. What we do have is proper offices for particular days.

Safro of Friday

For access to the Safro of Friday, click here.

Our Lord, accept our service, our prayers, come to our aid and have mercy on us!

Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter. Let us remember and celebrate the living-giving passion and glorious resurrection of our Lord all the moments of our lives.

Safro of Thursday

Another morning office available!

To access this office, click here.

Our Lord, accept our service, our prayers, come to our aid and have mercy on us!

Wednesday Safro

Like all the offices, the time it refers to in the day is not limited only to the temporal circumstances of that literal day but to the greater eschatological context. In particular, I refer to a very commonly used image in Syriac tradition - the Lord as the master of the vineyard who hires laborers at different hours of the day and pays everyone equally.

Tuesday Safro

To access office, click here.

Very short on time as of late, so I'm unable to give a commentary. Pray for me.

Our Lord, accept our service, our prayers, come to our aid and have mercy on us!

Excerpt from Holy Cross Hoosoyo

While this blog is specifically for the Ordinary, my curiosity leads me to the Fenqitho. This season is that of the Holy Cross, and the Fenqitho contains propers for this feast which was celebrated on the 14th, and will continue to be commemorated in this season until the new Church year begins in November. I translated a little excerpt from the Holy Cross Safro, which I've added below with a little more commentary.

Safro of the Assumption

In the Syriac tradition, we lack the systematic treatises of the Latin Church. What we have, instead, are beautiful poetic liturgical texts which are catechismal in two ways: (1) they're instructive as to how we should raise glory to God and (2) they're instructive as to why we should raise glory to God (lex orandi, lex credendi). This office of the Assumption is illustrative to Mary's voluntary role in the Incarnation of God and salvation of mankind, her power was an intercessor and God's magnification of her.

Sooghito from the Safro of the Assumption

I've been making good headway with the Safro of the Assumption and I'm more than halfway complete. Although the sooghito of an office are generally 22 short lines they are the perfect introduction to the hoosoyo because they provide an apt summary for the theological context and importance of what is being celebrate, which is then fully explained in the hoosoyo.

Qolo from the Safro of the Assumption

As explained in this previous post I will be deviating slightly from the objective of this blog (i.e. translating the Ordinary) in honor of the Virgin Mary by translating the Safro of her Assumption (which is found in the book of festal offices called the Fenqitho). The qole and prayers are very beautiful and reflect many of the Church's longstanding Tradition of the Virgin and her death.

In Honor and Remembrance of the Pure and Holy Virgin Mother of God

To those who pray the Shhimtho or have read any Syriac prayers or homilies it is very obvious that Mary is venerated very highly. Thank God our tradition was never touched by the heresies of the reformers. In honor of the Mary I am translating the Safro for the Assumption, which I hope to post sometime next week.

Safro of Monday

I just posted the Safro of Monday, which means this is the second complete day of offices posted.

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.

Verse of Safro's Qolo

One of the main travesties of the Prayer of the Faithful is that it destroys the brilliant formula of prayer that the writers of the Sh'himto created. Everything is complimentary - hymns in the morning, for example, speak about the Second Coming as the dawning of the sun and the apostles being bright lights that illuminated the four quarters of the earth. Tangentially, it also alludes in the night office to death and lying down in the hope of resurrection. In an even more complex complimentarity, the rotating verses of scripture are related to the following verse of each qolo.

In this post, I will take a look at one of the eschatological verses of one of the qole in Sunday's Safro. 

Brief Overview of Safro

Each large office has a distinctive set of prayers. Safro is no different. I haven't had much time to work on translating the actual texts (although I've been working on Sunday's!) but I'll give a brief overview of the setup.

Syriac Gloria

So while I'm working on Safro and the longer offices I will obviously not be able to post full offices as often. Instead, for longer offices I'll share interesting bits and reflections while the office is still being translated. For this post, I'd like to share the Syriac Gloria.