O Lord, behold your Church, saved by your Cross, and your flock bought with your precious Blood, offers a crown of thanksgiving in faith to you, O High Priest of justice who has exalted her by your abasement. And, like a glorious Bride, she rejoices and exults in you, O glorious Bridegroom. In the strength of the Truth, raise the walls of her salvation, and establish priests within her, to be ambassadors of peace on behalf of her children.
[From the Basilica Hymn for The Week Beginning the Great Fast (Sawma/Lent), in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 475. The Book of Before and After is the the liturgy of the hours (Divine Office) for the churches of the Church of East, i.e., the Church that grew up east of the Roman Empire (the Church that grew up inside the Roman Empire being the 'Church of the West'). Churches in the Church of the East tradition are the Assyrian Church of the East (sometimes just called the Church of the East, which includes the Chaldean Syrian Church of India), the Chaldean Catholic Church (which is in communion with Rome), and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (also in communion with Rome). This particular version of The Book of Before and After is specifically designed for the use of Chaldean Catholics.
In the churches of the Church of the East -- as almost everywhere except the Latin Church -- Lent begins today; Ash Wednesday is a Latin Church tradition, and is not celebrated in the East at all, except in Maronite and (sometimes) Syro-Malabar parishes that serve a lot of Latin Catholics. The fasting custom for Chaldean Catholics is generally that the first, middle and last days of Lent are days of fast and abstinence, where abstinence covers not only meat but also dairy and eggs, and Fridays in Lent are days of abstinence from meat; there is no fasting on Sunday. Fasting consists of eating nothing between midnight and noon and only moderately the rest of the day.]
