Midday Office of Sunday

I have finished the Midday Office of Sunday. All the seven offices of Sunday have been uploaded.

Midnight Office of Sunday Finally Completed!

I've finally completed the Lilyo of Sunday. It is the longest of the offices and contains many beautiful prayers.

Hoosoyo of Sunday Lilyo

Below I've attached the Hoosoyo (Proemion, Sedro, Qolo and Etro) of Sunday's Lilyo. It's pretty clear to me the reason why these offices have remained untranslated the more I look at them because it seems the certain Syriac theology revealed to them would be upsetting to certain sensibilities currently present in the Maronite Church. The Etro particularly comes to mind because it sets a typology up between the sacrifice of Abraham, Moses, Aaron and the other Levitical high priests and the current priesthood both intended for the glorification but also appeasement of God. Such ideas have been central to Syriac theology for the last two millennia and we must remember that our current priesthood is a continuation of the Levitical priesthood magnified by the Incarnation. We should not cast off the understanding of our soteriology for meaningless platitudes because it seems a bit frightening that God is not required to grant us the remission and forgiveness of sins and offenses.

Lilyo Sooghito

Once again, my apologizes to those who follow this blog for a recent lull in posts, I've been very busy. I just completed the Sooghito of Sunday Lilyo (included below) and I hope to finish the office in its entirety pretty soon.

All I will say of the sooghito is that it shows an interesting dynamic of theosis resonating with the phrase "Christ became man so that we may become god" (St. Athanasius).

Glory of the Three Youths

This is the first opportunity I've gotten to translate in a while. Below is the full text of the opening Qolo of the fourth watch of Sunday's Lilyo. It has a few verses of typology, as well as intercessory verses.

First Verse of the Glory of the Three Youths Hymn - Sunday's Lilyo

So I know I haven't made a post in a while, so I wanted to just post a teaser of the first qolo before the hoosoyo in the fourth watch of Sunday's lilyo.

Sunday Lilyo 3rd watch

The Sunday Lilyo has been taking me a rather long time - so far I've just began the final watch. I thought I would share the sedro of the hoosoyo in the 3rd watch [to the departed].

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.

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.

First 3rd Hour Translated

So I recently translated the 3rd Hour of Sunday to add to the Shhimto-in-progress. However, I've run into a small issue of logistics since I no longer have my computer is format the document as I please or add Syriac for the melody notation. I will be most likely adding a temporary text, which I will replace at a later time.

Anyway, the 3rd Hour is, structurally, the same as the 9th Hour but this office in particular presents something very interesting about Eastern theology in general.

Reflection on Compline of Sunday

So the second compline office has been posted. I think I've decided I like the idea of shorter reflections, seeing as how I don't want to go on forever to bore the few readers I have - if anyone would like any specific item addressed, feel free to ask in writing and with your permission I'll publicly address it (or privately if you'd prefer).

Anyway, the theme I'd like to address in this Sootoro is the frequent imagery in Syriac theology of the mystical wedding feast between the Bridegroom and the Church.

First 9th Hour Office Posted!

So I've posted the first 9th hour (i.e. 3PM) office. I intend to write a prayerful reflection on something in the office, but for the first type of each office I'd also like to make some remarks.