Wa Habbibi

Wa Habibi (O My Son)
English adap.: Fr. M. Labaky

Verse I
Wa habibi Wahabibi
Ayu Halen Anta Fyh
Mann Shajaka Mann Manaka
Ebnu Mann Haza Safih
Ya Habibi Ayu Zanben
Qad Sana'ta Awo Karyeh
Anta Majhudon Jarihon
Layssa Fihka Min Shifa
-Transliterated Arabic

Verse I
O my son om beloved
Se the plight love brings you to
what distress and What afliction
Wicked Men have laid on you!
O my Son , o what transgression
or what evil did you do
that you should be vexed and wounded
with no hope for any cure?

Verse II
Look on me daughter of Sion
Crushed beneath this might wave
anguish fills my very marrow
And it leads me to the grave
there is none to be a friend now
and this angry mob to brave
comming forward to console me
for the suff'ring I endure.

Verse III
I was bound and I was beaten
Like the meanest renegade
I was taken like an outlaw
and with whips to blood was flayed
for your sake I bore this anguish
that your joy be unallayed
so be hold my sad condition
have you seen travail so pure!

During the Great Friday service, me and my new friend Andrew were asked to help carry the cloth ,containing the wooden corpus of Our Lord, in procession around the church and to hold it over the heads of the people as they walked under it after the procession. Sadly I am not strong and was unable to hold it over the people's heads so I had to switch off with another parishoner : ( . The service ended with the burial of Our Lord's corpus in a tomb, covered by the chalice veil to represent that the Altar is the tomb in which Our Lord is buried in every Liturgy and then we sang the above song. The sermon was on the saving power of Christ's cross and that without Christ, the cross is a meaningless symbol. Likewise without Christ's death, His resurection is non existant, but similarly without the resurection, His death is meaningless as well.