The Service of the Holy Prayers of Nineveh
in the Chaldean Church, Toronto.
February 2, 3, 4, 2009
For these three days, Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, the doors of our church of the Good Shepherd were opened from 8 AM for Confessions and private prayers for the faithful. Many came to this early service who could not attend the entire ceremony of this holy memory of Nineveh fast and the Holy Mass at 7Pm.
At 3PM I started with a brief Holy Invocation and after I went to hear the confessions of the people. Deacons, men and women with the sweet songs continued the prayer of our rites with readings, songs and hymns for this holy memory of Bautha for the good of the faithful present.
Shabah
Our invisible Father in Heaven blessed be Your Holy Name by your Holy Spirit. We ask you do protect us from Satan who is continually striving to control our lives. Destroy him Oh Lord with your great power and your kingdom come to us which You promised to those who love you. And Your will be done here in mystery and here in Your mercy. From Your wholesome meal give us our daily sustenance. Forgive our sins because you know our weaknesses. Save Oh Lord, your creation which the mouth of evil is open to consume. Because Yours is the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory. Oh Lord, don’t abandon us from the heritage of the saints.
Hymn
Be careful, don’t sin as you sinned in the beginning and don’t let the yoke of death discourage you. Oh mortal come all of you mortals to walk in the way of the just for we arrive at the end of the promised lives. With fasting keep the body under control like with a yoke to work in the field of the spiritual life.
Tishbohta
With sorrow and tears and prayers we call on you Oh merciful Lord. Be for us a good doctor and the good leader, because our pains are hurtful and our disease is very debilitating. There is no justice among us to reconcile us with you because our iniquity becomes great and our sins multiply. Both the sea and the earth and everything in them are troubled because of our sins. We are coming to the end of time which was written about. Save us with your mercy Oh Lord. Save us from the storms that trouble us and disturb both Heaven and Earth. Oh Good Shepherd lead your people because for the you suffered the passion. Together, priests and leaders make the peace to have peaceful time and tranquility of life and to be yours in Your will, Father, Son and Holy Spirit forever and ever.
Amen and amen.
Hpakhatha
1) It is a time of penance. Let us be workers with prayer. Let us ignore the works around us because they keep our eyes on the temporal. Lift our eyes to the highest heaven and ask for mercy and blessing.
2) Come quickly, oh sinners to repent very soon. Everyone should confess his sins to have forgiveness from his iniquities. Until mercy comes we have to prepare our souls.
3) Let our sorrowful souls be comforted as we recognize that early creatures enjoy the goods coming from the highest. In the same way our greatest desires will be rewarded by the good fruits of repentance.
4) Let us make our voices one voice and our community one will. Let’s unite our love with one love our souls like our songs. Because the love is very strong which opens the door for our prayer.
5) Let us make our praise to God like incense which full of reconciliation. Make our fast Jesus Christ be like a sponge to clean away for sins Our assembly sings in unity and supplication. “Lord have mercy on us.”
Lord have mercy on us. Lord accept our prayers. Lord accept our penance.
Btharakh Maran Naqshenan
We knock on Your door Oh Lord and we ask for Your mercy. Open and respond to our supplication. Oh good Lord, How great is your unending mercy!
The sinners knock on your door to receive from You Your forgiveness. The sinners come to your door to be forgiven by Your grace. Your soiled creatures ask you Oh Lord Don’t’ reject the words of creatures. We hungry people knock on your door. By your mercy please satisfy our needs.
Every person who is sick comes to you Oh Lord to be healed. By you, everyone in difficulty asks to have his tranquility restored. In Your beauty, look at who is not beautiful and change with them to become beautiful. To you the sinner calls and by your forgiveness will receive your mercy
We confess Oh Lord our sins. Don’t deny us your graces. We confess Oh Lord that you are the Son. Reveal Yourself to us as the Son of good Lord. We confess that we are selfish. Don’t’ be revengeful for our faults. We are sinful people Oh good Lord, be merciful and kind to those who are miserable.
Reading
Whoever comes to Bautha prayer has to cleanse their minds and prepare their hearing like a farmer tends his field. The seed of life which is planted by God and will grow and thrive in prepared ground. The heart of the Christian should be clean like the eye before light. If the eye is weak it cannot respond to the light. If the hearing is weak, it cannot interpret even good pronunciation. If our minds are not properly cultivated they cannot accept medicine of life. The body is here but the mind is not here. Chaldean Breviary Page 414
If some important person comes to your house, your honor becomes great for your family. How much greater would your house be honored if the Lord comes to visit you. Be for the Lord the altar and the high priest and serve Him in your life because He became for you the altar, the high priest and the tabernacle. Don’t Let your mind be corrupted. Don’t allow something into the temple that God doesn’t like. Let us prepare to decorate the house of God with things that God likes. If there is anger let peace reside there. If there is violence, let the perfume of tranquility be there. Reject hostility and jealousy as they impart an evil odor. Put in there love like incense which is full of medicine. Take from it the garbage, all bad customs and bad habits and put in good habits like jasmine and roses and decorated your temple with prayers and devotion.
The explanation
The teachers of our church remind us with these good words and make us aware to be removed from evil things and from empty fortune and also from the thoughts of those who are against the love of God and our neighbor. He also taught us to be open to our God our Lord and our King and make ourselves temples, dignified to His honor who becomes for us altar, high priest and tabernacle. “There is no greater love than this that a man gives his live for his friend”.
When we pray before the altar of the Lord, my dear people, let our thinking be pure and clean. Let all external things remain outside in the world. Let our eyes, ears, tongue and mouth and all five senses be under control and good will. From a pure mind informed b the holy Spirit we have to ask Him to give us the power to do good things and to think and to speak in such a way that our actions thinking and words will be full of goodness and directed to the glory of God and His holy church.
Sermon
My beloved faithful, today is the first day of holy Bautha. The holy gospel reminds us now of the day of the last judgment in which our Lord Jesus Christ will take an accounting from everyone and will reward them because they did the will of God like the just who asked Him. “Lord, when did we ever find you thirsty or a stranger or naked or in prison, and would not help you” Matthew 25:44
The just judge, Our Lord Jesus Christ, will reward the chosen who follow Him in the way of Justice and humility with the acts of love and mercy before the Lord and before their neighbor.
We are reminded of the example of the King who took an accounting from his servant who with a merciful heart forgave everything that was owed. This is a reflection of the mercy of God and His Divine justice on the Day of Judgment. The Lord will everyone reward for his good life. Because the Lord is merciful and just, he will forgive us our sins and will give us His Kingdom of heaven especially when we follow Him in a good and holy way. We will accomplish and keep His divine commandments and we do His will as our Lord Jesus Christ taught us. That is the only way, justice and life. It is the way of peace, happiness and rest here on this earth and then in heaven.
When is the believer and Christian happy in this life? The believer becomes happy when He is close to the Lord and leads a blessed, holy and spiritual life and exhibits good examples of mercy and love. The believer becomes happy through the spirit of humility before God and before his neighbor in the name of Jesus, our Lord. The Lord gave to the just their eternal heritage. “Come to me then the King will say to the people on his right, ‘Come you that are blessed by my Father. Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world.’” Matthew 25:34
My brothers and sisters, let us listen to the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ who says to the just and gives them the kingdom of heaven. When we do good things dignified to His honor and removes us from the sin and iniquity that threaten to remove us from His eternal love. Listen, Oh my beloved, to the voice of Jesus who says “Go in through the narrow gate because the gate to hell is wide and the way that leads to it is hard and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the life started in this temporal world when we received the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ after confession. He said “If you don’t eat of the body of the son of man and don’t drink of his blood you will not have life in your person”
And to arrive at this unity with Jesus, our Lord and King and to stay in His Divine love and to be with Him, we need prayer and fasting which are good and effective ways through which we become closer to God and stay in his love. Without fasting and prayer we cannot be truly effective for God. Note the prayer from the humble and pure heart In Psalm 53 “Create a pure heart in me, O God and put a new and loyal spirit in me.”
Prayer is the key of the universe that opens the door of the kingdom of heaven and reward from the treasure full of graces. With this prayer, oh Lord, let your grace open the door of your treasury to the needy and bestow upon them your mercy to those who call Your name and who hope in You.
This is the power of prayer and fasting that elevate the Christian to the highest, the place of glory, the place of martyrs and confessors, the place of angels and archangels that glorify and sing to the Lord. With these good acts and acts of fasting and prayer believers become closer to God and closer to His eternal love. Like the eagle in nature which flies in the sky and shows us by his act the power and wisdom of God. “Look at the crows: they don’t sow seeds or gather a harvest; they don’t have storerooms or barns; God feeds them! You are worth so much more than birds!” Luke 12:24
All together, my beloved children of our Church, let us show our love and honor to almighty God, especially at this time of holy Bautha, a time of prayer. We pray that we might accomplish His holy commandments by fasting and prayer, by confession and by receiving the Holy Eucharist, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ for our own intentions and for the intentions of sinners to return to the penance that all together we listen to the nice and sweet voice of Jesus, the good shepherd. He will give us eternal life and open to us the door of salvation to live with Him in holiness here in this world and afterwards in the Kingdom of Heaven. “I am the gate. Whoever comes in by me will be saved; he will come in and go out and find pasture.” John 10:9. “I am the good shepherd, who is willing to die for the sheep.” John 10:11
+ Archbishop Hanna Zora
Toronto February 2, 2009
