Ordering of the Year

Here’s a selection of some of the hymns sung in the Chaldean and Assyrian Churches at the end of each month, and especially at the end of the year, asking God to “order” the coming year toward his glory and the good of our souls. The translation is singable according to a pretty common melody, […]

Madrasha on the Solemnity of Our Lady

Blest is the Fruit who dawned from you, O blessed woman. – No one knows what to call your mother, O Lord: if one calls her a virgin, her Son appears; if married, no man has known her. And if your mother is incomprehensible, who could know you? – She alone is your mother, and […]

Funeral Hymns

I finally got around to translating these a few weeks ago. The Entrance Hymns are pretty intense exhortations to repentance for the living, as the casket is brought into the church; the Recessional Hymns are a touching goodbye spoken in the person of the deceased, whose casket is being taken out while they are sung. […]