Mage Jeewithe Obata Barai Lyrics by Rev. Fr Kalana Peiris

My life is surrendered to you,
may your life become my joy,
to be submitted to your will
wrapped and clinging in your life, falling, turning, staying ever close
Alle, Alle, luyia, Alle, Alle, luyia
Alle, Alle, luyia… Alleluia…

With every single hair that falls,
my longing is to become what you desire
broken, parted, burned to ash,
I will worship you, offered up like rising smoke
Alle, Alle, luyia, Alle, Alle, luyia
Alle, Alle, luyia… Alleluia…

To be melted like gold,
to be crushed small like a lump of clay,
to be buried like a seed,
broken and dissolved as you wish, in bondage to you, I offer you myself
Alle, Alle, luyia, Alle, Alle, luyia
Alle, Alle, luyia… Alleluia…

This is a hymn of total surrender, and it takes the biblical idea of offering oneself to God as a “living sacrifice” and turns it into a chain of vivid, self-emptying images. The opening vow is complete, “my life is surrendered to you,” and the desire that shapes everything else is simple, “may your life become my joy, to be submitted to your will.” The word woven through the refrain, “Alleluia,” turns the surrender into praise rather than grim duty.

The images the singer chooses to describe that surrender are striking because they all involve being broken or undone. “Broken, parted, burned to ash, I will worship you, offered up like rising smoke,” recalls the smoke of an offering ascending to God. Then comes a beautiful trio: “to be melted like gold,” refined in fire until pure; “to be crushed small like a lump of clay,” soft in the potter’s hands; “to be buried like a seed,” which, as Jesus taught, must fall into the ground and die before it can bear fruit.

Each picture says the same thing in a different way: real devotion means letting God reshape you, even through breaking. “Broken and dissolved as you wish, in bondage to you, I offer you myself.” What the listener is left with is a joyful, almost reckless self-giving, a heart that wants nothing held back, content to be melted, crushed and buried like gold, clay and seed, so long as it ends up wholly God’s, and singing Alleluia the whole way.