were now dead And sending for the Centurion asked him If he were now dead And when he understood by the Centurion he gave the body to Joseph And Joseph buying sindon and taking him down wrapped him in the sindon and laid him in a monument that was hewed out of a rock And he rolled a stone to the door of the monument The OFFERTORY taken out of the 139th Psalm The Church teacheth us that when we beg of God to be freed from the persecution of our enemies to pray as our Saviour prayed that God's will and ours might be fulfilled KEep me O Lord from the hand of a sinner and from unjust men deliver me SUSCIPE SANCTE PATER until the Secret as before pag. 56 57 58. The SECRET The Church having taught us in the Gradual of this Mass to have recourse unto God by Fasting and Prayer in our afflictions and representing by the notice our Saviour gave his Disciples that the hour of his Passion approached though 't was himself and not his Disciples that was to suffer nevertheless it was not for himself that he said Watch and Pray but onely for them lest they should fall into temptation The Faithful must consider that if the Apostles were not secure even whilest our Saviour was suffering how much more ought they to fear failing whilest themselves are in affliction whereupon amongst the many tentations wherewith they are surrounded they beseech God to give them the grace to Fast and attend to Prayer in such manner that they may reap the benefit of our Saviour's Passion by vertue of the Sacrifice of the Altar which it represents unto them and by which its merits is applied unto them if their sins prevent not GRant O Lord we beseech thee that these Sacrifices which we celebrate with wholsome Fasting by an holy Institution may repair our nature Through our Lord c. Against the Persecutors of the Church Protege nos as before pag. 90. Or for the Pope Oblatis c. as before pag. 90. The Preface and Cnaon till the Communion as before pag. 60 to 79. The COMMUNION taken out of the 68th Psalm The Church instructs us that the Jews not seeing visibly our Saviour's deliverance as one sunk under the weight of their tyranny they being ignorant of his Passion and Resurrection understood not that by his passing hence to immortal glory he made a passage for us from the old to a new life he having never lived in sin was not in a captivity to quit what he was not guilty of THey spake against me that sate in the gate and they made songs against me who drank wine but I made my Prayer to thee O Lord it is a time of thy good pleasure O God in the multitude of thy mercy The POST-COMMUNION The Faithful pray to God that they may cast off the old and put on a new life by vertue of this Sacrament which represents unto us this happy change in the mystery of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ applying its merits unto us SAnctifie us Almighty God by thy Sacraments that we may receive a cure for our sins and life everlasting Through our Lord c. Against the Persecutors of the Church O Lord our God we beseech thee to preserve those from falling through humane frailties whom thou hast vouchsafed to a participation in this Holy Communion Through our Lord c. Or for the Pope PRotect O Lord we beseech thee by the participation of this Divine Sacrament and strengthen thy Servant N. whom thou hast advanced to be Chief Pastor of thy Church that he and the flock committed to his charge may attain Eternal Life Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. A Prayer over the People Let us Pray Humble your selves and bow down your heads to God LEt thy Mercy O Lord cleanse us from the corruption of the old man and give us a new spirit Through our Lord c. All the rest as before pag. 79. THE MASS FOR WEDNESDAY IN Holy Week The Station to St. Mary Major To teach us that the Son of God being impassible and immortal as to his divinity could not subject himself to sufferings and death but only according to that flesh which he took of the holy Virgin Mary The INROITT taken out of the 2d Chapter of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians and out of the 101st Psalm The Church instructs us with how much considence we ought to address our Prayers to God in the name of his Son Jesus Christ either in respect of his love for us having suffered death to redeem us or for his omnipotence being the same God with his Father whom all creatures ought to adore The Angels are thereunto obliged for though Christ died not for them yet mankind being thereby redeemed they reap some advantage being reconciled unto them after the enmity and separation which sin had caused between them and for that by this Redemption of man the loss and fall of the Angels was repaired The Devils are obliged by force being overcome and trodden under foot by him But mankind hath a singular obligation he having redeemed them to give them a Kingdom and most accomplisht felicity IN the Name of Jesus let every knee bow of things in Heaven of things in earth and of things under the earth because our Lord became obedient unto death even the death of the cross Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father PSALM CI. O Lord hear my Prayer and let my cry come unto thee KYRIE ELEISON c. as before pag. 36. Let us Pray V. Let us bend our knees R. Raise up your selves COLLECT The Faithful out of a pious confidence implore by their Prayers God's mercy through the Merits of his Son's Passion GRant we beseech thee O Almighty God that we who are incessantly afflicted through our excesses may be delivered by the Passion of thy only begotten Son who liveth and reigneth one God with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost world without end Amen The Lesson out of the 62d and 63d Chapter of the Prophet Isay The Church putting us in mind of Christ's Passion represents also unto us at the same time the Glory of his Resurrection to instruct us that his Divinity having never been separated from his Humanity he onely suffered because it was his will and that he made use of his sufferings to appear with the greater lustre in his Resurrection And thereupon in this Lesson his glorious Resurrection is set forth and his departure from Jerusalem the capital City of Judea which is compared for its infidelity to Bosra and Idumen carrying the marks of his Passion upon his Body wherewith his Divinity was clothed as in a Garment And under this figure of the defeat of the Idumeans and delivery of the people of Israel the Church represents to us the victory Jesus Christ gained over the World and the Devil 's securing his flock from their tyranny
and from the servitude of sin THis saith our Lord Tell ye the Daughters of Sion Behold thy Saviour cometh behold his reward is with him and his work before him Who is this that cometh from Edom with died garments from Bosra this beautiful one in his Robe going in the multitude of his strength I that speak justice and am a desender to save Why then is thy clothing red and thy garments as theirs that tread in the Wine-press I have trodden the Press alone and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me I have trodden them in my fury and have trodden them down in my wrath and their bloud is sprinkled on my garments and I have stained all my raiment For the day of revenge is in my heart the year of my redemption is come I looked about and there was no helper I sought and there was none to aid and my arm hath saved and my indignation it self hath helped me And I have trodden down the people in my fury and have inebriated them in my indignation and have drawn their strength down to ground I will remember the mercies of our Lord the praise of our Lord for all things that our Lord hath rendred to us The GRADUAL out of the 68th Psalm The Church having represented our Saviour in the precedent Lesson triumphing over his enemies in his glorious Resurrection presents him unto us in this Gradual in the extremity of his Passion begging of his Father to be delivered from it To instruct us that he prays not for himself to be delivered from his pains and from death for how should he beg for himself to be freed from this hour wherein he should die for us since he came voluntarily upon Earth to that end being able by his own strength to rescue himself and give up his Soul to God and take it again But his Prayer was on our behalf to teach us in afflictions to have recourse to God to deliver us if it be his will or to give us strength to bear them patiently Likewise Jesus did not pray to be freed from his pains and death because he had a will to suffer but he askt to be delivered from the corruption of the Sepulchre by a speedy and glorious Resurrection To teach us by his Passion what we ought to contemn in the course of this life and by his resurrection what we ought to hope and pray for TUrn not away thy face from thy Servant Because I am in tribulation hear me speedily V. Save me O God because waters of affliction are entred into my Soul I stuck fast in the mire of the depth and there is no sure standing Our Lord be with you R. And with thy Spirit Let us pray The faithful beseech God that by the merits of his Son's Passion they may partake in the glory of his Resurrection O God who wert pleased that thy Son should suffer death for us upon the Cross that so the power of the enemy of mankind might be abated grant unto us thy servants that we may partake of his glorious Resurrection Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ c. Against the Persecutors of the Church Ecclesiae tuae c. as before pag. 84. Or for the Pope Deus omnium c. as before pag. 85. The Lesson out of the Prophet Isay ch 63. The Church teacheth us that the mystery of Gods Incarnation is so full of astonishment his Sufferings so outrageous and his Death so ignominious that the Prophet Isay durst not publish them lest men should not believe them After this Prophet hath foretold many of the torments to be endured by this man of God he teacheth us first that our sins were the cause of his sufferings by which he was to satisfie for us to his Fathers justice Secondly that he offered himself to these pains as a voluntary Victim for our salvation and would suffer death thereby to purchase life for us Thirdly that in compensation of this his humility and sufferings he is raised above all Creatures in Heaven sitting on the right hand of God his Father Fourthly that God his Father hath bestowed upon him all those for his children who are predestinated to glory as the precious off-spring of his bloud which he so freely shed that even he was pleased to wash those in it that put him to death according to the Prayer as he made even when he was nailed on the Cross between the two Thieves IN those days said Isaias Who hath believed our hearing and the arm of our Lord to whom is it revealed And he shall come up as a young Spring before him and as a Root from a thirsty ground There is no beauty in him nor comliness and we have seen him and there was no sightliness and we were desirous of him Despised and most abject of men a man of sorrows and knowing infirmity and his look as it were hid and despised whereupon neither have we esteemed him He surely hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried and we thought him as it were a Leper and strucken of God and humbled But he was wounded for our iniquities he was broken for our sins the discipline of our peace was upon him and with the wait of his stripes we are healed All we have strayed as Sheep every one hath declined into his own way and our Lord hath put upon him the iniquity of all us He was offered because himself would and opened not his mouth As a Sheep to slaughter was he led and as a Lamb before his Shearer he shall be dumb and shall not open his mouth From distress and from judgment he was taken up Who shall declare his Generation because he is cut out of the Land of the living For the wickedness of my people have I strucken him And he shall give the impious for his burial and the rich for his death Because he hath not done iniquity neither was their guile in his mouth And our Lord would break him in infirmity If he shall put away his Soul for sin he shall see seed of long age and the will of our Lord shall be directed in his hand for that his Soul hath laboured he shall see and be filled In his knowledge the same my just servant shall justifie many and he shall bear their iniquities Therefore will I distribute unto him very many and he shall divide the spoils of the strong for that he hath delivered his Soul unto death and was reputed with the wicked and he hath born the sin of many and hath prayed for the transgressiors The TRACT taken out of the 101st Psalm The Church tells us that Jesus Christ in the time of his Passion offered to God his Father most fervent Prayers with tears and groans beseeching him not to leave him under the power of death which he suffered onely for his love and for the salvation of the faithful signified by Sion His dignity his innocence this very act of
praise come from our tongue Amen And when they are come to the place provided for the blessed Sacrament the Deacon upon his knees receives it from the Priests and puts it upon the Altar The Priest being upon his knees incenseth and placeth it in the Tabernacle and returning saith Evensong in the Quire The original of this Custome comes from the ancient reserving some part of the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ for the next day's Communion no Consecration being then made as St. Gregory teacheth in his Book of the Sacrament ON THURSDAY IN Holy Week At EVEN-SONG Pater noster c. Ave Maria c. PSALM CXV The Church presents unto us the confidence we must have in God in Afflictions and Persecutions patiently bearing what he shall please to lay upon us beseeching his Majesty that we may die the death of the just that death which is precious in his eyes that death which may secure us from a second death that death which renders the dead happy because they died in our Lord. And if he shall please to deliver us from evil and dangers the Church proposes some sentiments of gratitude and fidelity we ought to conceive in our hearts and the obligation which nevertheless we have not to be less careful and sollicitous that we be not oppressed by God's benefits in not making a right use of them as we are by our sins in not quitting and leaving them as we are bound to do Ant. I will drink the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. I Believed for which I spake but I was humbled exceedingly I said in my excess every man is a lier What shall I render to our Lord for all things that he hath rendred to me I will take the chalice of salvation and will invocate the Name of our Lord. I will render my vows to our Lord before all people precious in the fight of our Lord is the death of his saints O Lord because I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid Thou hast broken my bonds I will sacrifice to thee the host of praise and I will invocate the Name of our Lord. I will render my vows to our Lord in the sight of all his people in the courts of the house of our Lord in the midst of thee O Jerusalem Ant. I will drink the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of our Lord. PSALM CXIX The Church exhorts the Faithful to consider how insupportable the labours are we suffer in this life and how horrible the troubles are which accompany that repose wherewith the world would have us contented to the end that we may acknowledge true content to be found onely in God the sole centre of repose and reaâ— good and that we likewise stir up in our selves a fervent desire to enjoy him speedily bewailing our so long detention in the pilgrimage of this life Ant. With those who did hate peace I was peaceable when I speak to them they impugned me without cause WHen I was in tribulation I cried to our Lord and he heard me Our Lord deliver my soul from unjust lips and from a deceitful tongue What may be given thee or what may be added unto thee to a deceitful tongue The sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of desolation Wo is to me that my sojourning is prolonged I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar My soul hath been long a sojourner With them that hated peace I was peaceable when I spake to them they impugned me without cause Ant. With those who did hate peace I was peaceable when I spake to them they impugned me without cause PSALM CXXXIX The Royal Prophets shews us how to have recourse to God in Afflictions and Persecutions by considering his Justice and Mercy neither permitting any sin to pass unpunishable nor good works unrewarded that he can either divert sweeten give strength to support or absolutely free from the burden of the miseries of this liâ—â— and that after this he can raise men to the fruition of that bliss where no ill can interrupt nor the sovereign good be lost Ant. Deliver me our Lord from evil men DEliver me our Lord from the evil man from the unjust man rescue me Which have devised iniquity in their heart all the day they did appoint battles They have whet their tongues as that of a serpent the venome of asps is under their lips Keep me O Lord from the hand of the sinner and from unjust men deliver me Who have devised to supplant my steps the proud have had a snare for me And they have stretched out ropes for a snare they have laid a stumbling block for me near the way Our Lord Lord the strength of my salvation thou hast overshadowed my head in the day of battle Yield me not our Lord from my desire to the sinner they have devised against me forsake me not lest they perhaps be proud The head of their compass the labour of their lips shall cover them Coals shall fall upon them thou shalt cast them down into fire the miseries they shall not stand up A man full of tongue shall not be directed in the earth evils shall take the unjust man into destruction I have known that the Lord will do the judgments of the needy and the revenge of the poor But as for the just they shall confess unto thy Name and the righteous shall dwell with thy countenance Ant. Deliver me our Lord from evil men PSALM CXL In this Psalm the Holy Prophet teacheth us to acknowledge and confess our sins sincerely that so we may obtain the comforts and blessings of God in the traverses of this life we must examine and put a bridle upon our tongue we must order our words with prudence and discretion we must be sincere in our hearts and discourse hating the vain praises and compliances of flatterers and sinners and taking in good part the meek reprehensions of the just in short we must stir up in our souls an aversion and horror against sin practising patience in afflictions and putting our trust in God Ant. Keep me from the snare which they have set for me and from the scandals of those that work iniquity LOrd I have cried to thee hear me attend to my voice when I shall cry to thee Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight the elevation of my hands as evening sacrifice Set our Lord a watch to my mouth and a door round about my lips Decline not my heart into words of malice to make excuse in sins With men that work iniquity and I will not communicate with the chief of them The just shall rebuke me in mercy and shall reprehend me but let not the oyl of a sinner fat my head Because yet also my prayer is in their good pleasures their judges are swallowed up joyned to the rock They shall hear my words because they have prevailed as the grosness of the
the end for which we became Christians is not for this temporal life wherein God often delivers us up to persecutors who persecute us even to death but that the Name of Christian entitles us to an Eternal Life considering that he whose Name we bear was treated so for us PSALM XXI O God my God have respect unto me why hast thou forsaken me far from my salvation are the words of my sins My God I shall cry by day and thou wilt not hear and by night and not for folly unto me But thou dwellest in the holy place the praise of Israel In thee our fathers have hoped they hoped and thou didst deliver them They cried to thee and were saved they hoped in thee and were not confounded But I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and outcast of the people All that see me have scorned me they have spoken with lips and wagged the head He hoped in the Lord let him deliver him save him because he willeth him Because thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb my hope from the breasts of my mother Upon thee I have been cast from the matrice from my mothers womb thou art my God depart not from me Because tribulation is very nigh because there is not that will help Many calves have compassed me fat bulls have besieged me They have opened their mouths upon me as a lyon ravening and roaring As water I am poured out and my bones are dispersed My heart is made as wax melting in the midst of my body My strength is withered as a potsherd and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death Because many dogs have compassed me the counsel of the maglignant hath besieged me They have digged my hands and my feet they have numbred all my bones But themselves have considered and beheld me they have divided my garments among them and upon my vesture they have cast lots But thou Lord prolong not thy help from me look toward my defence Deliver O God my soul from the sword and mine onely one from the hand of the dog Save me out of the lyon's mouth and my humility from the horns of unicorns I will declare thy Name to my brethren in the midst of the Church I will praise thee Ye that fear our Lord praise him all the seed of Jacob glorifie ye him Let all the seed of Israel fear him because he hath not contemned nor despised the petition of the poor Neither hath he turned away his face from me and when I cried to him he heard me With thee is my praise in the great Church I will render my vows in the sight of them that fear him The poor shall eat and shall be filled and they shall praise our Lord that seek after him their hearts shall live for ever and ever All the ends of the earth shall remember and be converted to our Lord. And all the families of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight Because the kingdom is our Lords and he shall have dominion over the Gentiles All the fat ones of the earth have eaten and adored in his sight shall all fall that descended into the earth And my soul shall live to him and my seed shall serve him The generation to come shall be shewed to our Lord and the heavens shall shew forth his justice to the people that shall be born whom our Lord hath made Ant. They have divided my garments among them and upon my vesture they have cast lots This Ceremony is very ancient For St. Gregory mentions it in his Book de Sacramentis and in the sixteenth and seventeenth Councils of Toledo held in the year 693 and 694. in the eighth Canon of the former and in the second of the latter and likewise in St. Eligius Bishop of Noyon who lived in the same Age and treats of it in his eighth Homily ON Good Friday At Prime As before Page 131. At the Third Hour As before Page 136. At the Sixth Hour As before Page 142. At the Ninth Hour As before Page 147. I. N.R.I MASS FOR Good Friday The station in the Church of the Holy Cross of Hierusalem To instruct us that Jesus Christ suffered death upon this day in Hierusalem To the end that this day's Office may be performed with profound humility the Prayers of the None being ended those that officiate come before the Altar and kneeling prostrate themselves on the ground The Acolyts rise and lay a Cloth upon the Altar to represent the Linnens wherein Christ's body was wrapped before he was put into the Sepulcher and also to mind us by this Ceremony of the last Duties paid to our Saviour's body by Joseph of Arimathea and Nichodemus Then the Reader sings the first Prophecy without a title to observe unto us the ignorance and blindness of the Jews who would not understand the truths revealed unto them by the Prophets You may observe also that this Office is begun by Lessons as was done in the Primitive times The LESSON taken out of the sixth Chapter of the Prophet Osee The Church by the words of this Prophet declares unto us the love which God always had for his people either by correcting them to make them return to their duty or by sending Prophets among them who exposed their lives to save them or by sending at last his onely Son who died and rose again the third day to expiate their sins to deliver them from everlasting death and to give them a new life and an eternal felicity THus said our Lord In their tribulation early they will rise up to me come and let us return to our Lord because he hath wounded and he will heal us he will strike and will cure us He will revive us after two days in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight We shall know and we shall follow that we may know our Lord. As the morning light is his coming forth prepared and he will come to us as a shower timely and late to the earth What shall I do to thee Ephraim What shall I do to thee Juda Your mercy as a morning cloud and as the dew passing away in the morning For this have I hewed in the Prophets I have killed them in the words of my mouth and thy judgments shall come forth as the light Because I would mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than Holocausts The TRACT taken out of the third Chapter of the Prophet Abacuc The Church in the foregoing Lesson having taught us how advantageous the coming of Christ was to us shews us in this Tract how painful it was to this Divine Saviour to be born in a manger between two beasts and to be put to death upon the cross between two thieves O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid I considered thy works and trembled V. Thou wilt appear between two beasts
The Faithful in the name of the rest beseech God to make them constant and stable in Faith as the three Hebrews in the midst of Persecutions and Traverses of this Life and that he will give them the grace to remain humble as not depending on their own Justice or Merits but hoping only in his Mercy ALmighty and Everlasting God the onely hope of the world who by the mouths of thy Prophets hast manifested the mysteries of these times increase through thy goodness the fervour of the Vows and Prayers of thy people that they may obtain that perfection in Faith and Piety which they beg since none can advance in vertue but by thy holy inspirations Through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Then the Priest goes to the Font and the following Tract is sung taken out of the one and fortieth Psalm to inform the Catechumens how fervently they ought to desire Baptism AS the heart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God V. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God V. My tears have been my meat day and night while continually they say unto me Where is thy God Before the blessing of the Font the Priest says this Prayer Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Let us Pray The Priest prays for the Catechumens that God would please to give them the Faith necessary for their Sanctification in this Sacrament of Baptism ALmighty and Everlasting God look graciously upon the devotion of thy people now to be regenerate who as the Hart thirst after the waters of thy fountain and grant that the faith which they thirst may sanctifie their Soul and Body by the Sacrament of Baptism Through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen The Church blessing the Fonts upon Easter-Eve does instruct us that Baptism is a figure of the death of Jesus Christ and that he Spiritually does that in our souls which was truly done in his Body upon Mount Calvary For as Jesus Christ by dying hath destroyed the flesh which was in appearance sinful as he blotted out sin which was not in him but because he was pleas'd to charge himself with it to satisfie Divine Justice so Baptism destroys the Old Man who is truly the sinner to invest us with the New and to destroy sin which is truly ours to give us his Grace The Water wherein we are plunged represents our Saviours Burial advertising us that all our sins are there buried and when we come forth of it it is a figure of his Resurrection which was for the glory of his Father and signified that by his Example we ought to live a new Life full of Sanctity and that after this life of Grace we shall enjoy one of Glory if we are truly united to Jesus Christ It is to be observed that though these Ceremonies are not absolutely necessary yet they are not to be altered but upon extream necessity In that they are very ancient and comprehend great Mysteries the knowledge whereof brings us to see the admirable changes wrought in a Soul by Baptism The Priest implores Gods assistance to bless the Font. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Let us Pray ALmighty and Everlasting God bless these great Mysteries and Sacraments of thine infinite bounty and to regenerate this new people which this water of Baptism brings thee pour forth upon them the Spirit of Adoption so that what is to be done by the ministry of our weakness may be accomplished by the effect of thy power Through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen The Priest raising his voice to a higher Tone protests himself unworthy to administer so great a Sacrament and declares that all the efficacy of the Waters of Baptism come from the Holy Ghost who pours forth upon those that are Baptized the graces they are capable of through the Merits of Jesus Christ For ever and ever Amen Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Raise up your hearts R. We have them to our Lord. Let us give thanks to our Lord God R. It is meet and just IT is truly meet and just right and wholsom that we always and in all places give thee thanks O Lord Holy Father Almighty and Everlasting God who by thy invisible power dost wonderfully bring to pass the effect of thy Sacraments and though we are unworthy to administer so great Mysteries yet thou not withdrawing the gifts of thy grace art graciously pleased to hear our Prayers God whose spirit in the world beginning was carried upon the waters that then its nature might conceive the vertue of sanctification God who by the waters washing away the sins of the guilty world didst note the figure of regeneration by the overflowing of the deluge to the end that the same element by a prodigious mystery should be both the destruction of vices and the source of vertues cast down thine eyes upon the face of thy Church and multiply in her thy regenerations Thou who satiatest thy holy city with joy by the abundant affluence of thy graces and openest the Fonts of Baptism to the whole world to renew the nations inhabiting it that under the Empire of thy Majesty she may receive the grace of thy only Son by the vertue of the Holy Ghost The Priest divides the Water in form of the Cross to teach us that Grace and Sanctification are given us through the Merits of Christs Cross and Passion and that by the same Merits the Waters created for the generation of the Body are Sanctified and joyned with the grace of the Holy Ghost to a Spiritual Regeneration of Men on whom our Lord bestows his gifts without respect either to Nation Sex or Quality making them his Members that so they may live the same life with him And as by Adam's sin the Devil usurpt a Dominion over the Creatures which he makes use of to prejudice Man so he is deprived of it by our Redeemer's Merits who Sanctifies them for our good WHom we beseech by a secret mixture of his Divine Grace to make this water fruitful designed for the regeneration of men to the end that those who are conceived and sanctified in the immaculate womb of this Font may become a heavenly progeny being regenerated to a new creature and that all who are distinguished either by sex in the body or age in time may be brought forth to the same in fancy by grace which is their spiritual mother Command therefore O Lord that all unclean spirits may withdraw hence that all malice and deceit of the devil be banished that no power of the enemy may lurk here to prepare his ambushes to surprise by secret artifices to corrupt with his infection The Priest touches the Water with his hand to beg of God by the following words that it be not profaned MAY this holy and innocent creature O Lord be free from enterprises of the devil and all malice being set apart may be
Arch-angel the blessed S. John Baptist the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul all the Saints and you my Brethren to Pray to God for me R. ALmighty God have mercy upon thee and forgive thy sins and bring thee to life everlasting P. Amen I Confess unto Almighty God to the blessed Virgin S. Mary to the blessed S. Michael the Arch-angel to S. John Baptist to the Apostles Peter and Paul to all the Saints and to thee my Father that I have very much sinned in Thought Word and Deed through my Fault through my Fault through my most grievous Fault Therefore I beseech thee blessed Virgin S. Mary the blessed S. Michael the Arch-angel the blessed S. John Baptist Peter and Paul all the Saints and thee my Father to Pray to God for me P. ALmighty God have mercy on you forgive you your sins and bring you to life everlasting R. Amen P. ALmighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon absolution and remission of all our sins Amen This Confession being made the Priest and the Faithful encourage each other in the acknowledgement of God's mercy P. Thou being turned shalt quicken us O Lord. R. And thy people shall rejoyce in thee P. Shew us O Lord thy Mercy R. And give us thy Salvation P. O Lord hear my Prayer R. And let my cry come unto thee P. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy Spirit In this confidence the Priest ascends unto the Altar and says TAke away O Lord our Iniquities that so with a pure heart we may enter into the Holy of Holies Through Christ our Lord. Amen The Priest being at the Altar kisseth it in testimony of reconciliation with Christ and the Church triumphant for the Altar represents Christ crucified and the Reliques upon the Altar the Saints of the Church triumphant incorporated with Christ and says WE pray thee O Lord through the Merits of thy Saints whose Reliques are here and of all Saints that thou wilt please to pardon all my sins Amen After this preparation the Priest begins the Introit of the Mass THE MASS FOR Palm-Sunday The station in the Church of S. John Lateran As in the Old Law it was the custome to bring the Paschal Lamb into Jerusalem four days before the Feast so Jesus Christ of whom the Paschal Lamb was a figure was pleased to come into Jerusalem four days before the celebration of the Festival And therefore the Church representing this Mystery makes to day the station at Rome in the Church consecrated to God in honour of S. John Baptist because he declared unto us that our Saviour was the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the World The Introit taken out of the 21st Psalm As this Day 's Solemnity is a figure of the Victory which Christ gained over the World and the Devil by his Passion and Triumphant Resurrection the Church represents those Mysteries in the Introit of this Mass to teach us that the Resurrection of Christ in as much as it relates to his flesh was not delayed as that of other men but that he was exempted from corruption in the grave triumphing over death and the fury of his persecutors whom the Scriptures compare to Lions in respect of their cruelty to Dogs for their fury and to Unicorns for their pride For every proud and ambitious spirit would command all others as much as in him lies The wicked Jews thought they had done a grand work in that they were able to kill his Body yet had they not power to hurt his Soul they were able to take away a Mortal Life but could not prejudice his Eternal Life which is the onely and true Life and though as the Son of God he were worthy to be heard without Tears or Plaints yet to teach us our Duty by his example he would offer to God his Father most fervent Prayers with Tears and Crys beseeching him not to leave him dead in his grave The Dignity of his Condition the Reverence which he bore his Father whose Honour he repaired by his Death the incomparable Love wherewith his Father cherished him easily prevail for a concession of so just a Request O Lord prolong not thy help from me look towards my defence Save me out of the Lions mouth and my humility from horns of Unicorns PSALM XXI The Church represents unto us the Humility and Obedience wherewith Christ by a transport worthy his love would perfectly fulfil his Father's Will intimating unto us that the sins of men which he took upon him did require that he should be abandoned by his Father to all imaginable pains whereby to make rigorous satisfaction to his Justice yet that these words My God my God why hast thou forsaken me he speaks not in his own person but as in the unhappy infirmity of our flesh which he hath taken upon him and on the behalf of the members of his mystical body whose Groans and Prayers to his Father and himself he foresaw through a propension of humane nature desirous to be freed from Suffering and Death for who can believe our Saviour should desire to avoid Death and Sufferings since he came into the World to that end Or who can imagine he spake in such sort as if that which happened had been against his will who had power to give up his Soul to God and take it again though no man had power to bereave him of it These words then of this 21st Psalm are a figure of such Prayers as shall be addrest to God by men in their afflictions begging to be freed of them GOd my God have respect unto me why hast thou forsaken me far from my salvation are words of my sins O Lord prolong not thy help from me c. Gloria Patri c. is not now said because it is a publick Confession of Faith which the Church omits at this time when she represents the extreme impiety and infidelity of the Jews And Gloria in excelsis is for the same reason forborn The Priest in the name of the Faithful acknowledges the need we all have of the Grace of our Redeemer and repeats thrice the following words addrest to each Person of the Holy Trinity to express the great necessity we have of his assistance Lord have mercy on us R. Lord have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us R. Christ have mercy on us Christ have mercy on us R. Christ have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us R. Lord have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us The Priest turns towards the Faithful and beseeches God that he will be pleased to make them worthy of his presence and mercy V. Our Lord be with you The Faithful joyning Prayer with the Priest beg the like Grace for him R. And with thy Spirit The Collect. The Faithful beg of God Grace to imitate the Humility Obedience and Patience of Jesus Christ in all his Sufferings in this life that so they may partake with him in glory of his Resurrection
his justice to the people that shall be born whom our Lord hath made V. And the justice by which he shall render them just shall be shewed to the people At Paris the Tract being ended the Deacon begs God's grace to read the Passion of his Son so effectually to the Faithful that they may receive wholesome effect thereby CLeanse my heart and lips O Almighty God who didst cleanse the lips of the Prophet Isaiah with a burning coal and vouchsafe through thy gracious mercy to purifie me that I may worthily pronounce thy Holy Gospel Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. Then he asks blessing of the Priest V. Reverend Father bless me The Priest blesseth him saying OUr Lord be in thy heart and in thy lips that thou mayest worthily and competently publish his Gospel Amen He incenseth the Book in acknowledgment that Christ is the true Son of God who voluntarily put on humane nature that by his death he might expiate our sins The Acolyts carry the lighted Tapers before the Deacon to signifie the light of Grace and Glory which Christ by his death had merited for the Faithful According to the Roman Directory the Deacon asks not the Priest blessing before his reading of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ nor says Munda cor meum c nor doth he incense the Book but performs all those Ceremonies afterwards Nor doth the Priest salute the People with Dominus vobiseum c. Our Lord be with you to observe unto us a detestation of perfidious Judas who betrayed our Saviour with a Salute Nor do the People answer Gloria tibi Domine c. Glory be to thee O Lord to express that they do not glorifie Jesus Christ in his Passion Neither are the lighted Tapers carried to signifie that as well upon Earth through the Eclipse of the Sun and Moon the light of the World was extinguished as in Heaven by the Death of our Saviour Lastly The Book is not incensed to mind us that the fervour of Christ's Disciples Prayers was then abated The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew Chap. 26 27. AT that time Jesus said to his Disciples You know that after two days shall be Pasche and the Son of man shall be delivered to be crucified Then were gathered together the Chief Priests and Ancients of the People into the Court of the High Priest who was called Caiaphas And they consulted how they might by some guile apprehend Jesus and kill him But they said Not on the Festival-day lest perhaps there might be a tumult among the people And when Jesus was in Bethania in the house of Simon the leper there came to him a Woman having an Alabaster Box of Precious Oyntment and poured it out upon his Head as he sat at the Table And the Disciples seeing it had indignation saying Whereto is this waste for this might have been sold for much and given to the poor And Jesus knowing it said to them Why do you molest this Woman for she hath wrought a good work upon me for the poor you have always with you but me you have not always for she in pouring this Oyntment upon my Body hath done it to bury me Amen I say to you wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole World that also she hath done shall be reported for a memory of her Then went one of the twelve which was called Judas Iscariot to the Chief Priests and said to them what will you give me and I will deliver him unto you But they appointed unto him Thirty Pieces of Silver And from thenceforth he sought opportunity to betray him And the first day of the Azymes the Disciples cames to Jesus saying Where wilt thou that we prepare the Pasche But Jesus said Go into the City to a certain man and say to him the Master saith My time is at hand with thee do I make the Pasche with my Disciples And the Disciples did as Jesus appointed them and they prepared the Pasche But when it was even he sate down with his twelve Disciples And while they were eating he said Amen I say unto you That one of you shall betray me And they being very sad began every one to say Is it I Lord but he answering said He that dippeth his hand with me in the Dish he shall betray me The Son of man indeed goeth as it is written of him but wo be to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed it were good for him if that man had not been born And Judas that betrayed him said Is it I Rabbi he saith to him Thou hast said And whiles they were at Supper Jesus took Bread and blessed and brake and he gave to his Disciples and said Take ye and eat this is my Body And taking the Chalice he gave thanks and gave to them saying drink ye all of this for this is my Blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins And I say unto you I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the Wine until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the Kingdom of my Father And an Hymn being said they went forth unto Mount Olivet Then Jesus said to them All you shall be scandalized in me this night For it is written I will strike the Pastor and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed but after I shall be risen again I will go before you into Galilee And Peter answering said to him Although all shall be scandalized in thee I will never be scandalized Jesus said to him Amen I say to thee that in this night before the Cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice Peter said to him Yea though I should die with thee I will not deny thee Likewise also said all the Disciples Then Jesus cometh with them into a Village called Gethsemani and he said to his Disciples Sit you here while I go yonder and pray And taking to him Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee he began to wax sorrowful even unto death stay here and watch with me And being gone forward a little he fell upon his face praying and saying My Father if it be possible let this Chalice pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou And he cometh to his Disciples and findeth them sleeping and he saith to Peter Even so could you not watch one hour with me Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation The spirit indeed is prompt but the flesh weak Again the second time he went and prayed saying My Father if this Chalice may not pass but I must drink it thy will be done And he cometh again and findeth them sleeping for their eyes were become heavy And leaving them he went again and he prayed the third time saying the self-same word Then he cometh to his Disciples and saith to them Sleep ye now and take rest behold the hour approacheth and
Mediator for the whole Church for the Pope for our Bishop for our King and for all faithful Catholicks WE therefore most merciful Father humbly beseech thee through thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord to accept and bless these ✚ Gifts these ✚ Presents these ✚ Immaculate Sacrifices which in the first we offer unto thee for thy Holy Catholick Church to which thou wilt please to grant peace and preserve and maintain in unity through the whole World with the Pope N. thy servant and our Prelate N. and our King N. with all Orthodox Believers of the Catholick Apostolick Faith Then the Priest makes a particular Commemoration of the living for whom he intends to offer his Sacrifice REmember O Lord all thy servants Men and Women Here he makes mention of those for whom he prays in particular And all such especially as are here present whose Faith and Devotion is known unto thee for whom we offer and who offer to thee for themselves or friends this Sacrifice of Praise for the Benefit of their Souls in hope of health and salvation and pay their vows unto thee the Eternal Living and True God The Priest by the vertue of the union of the Church militant with the triumphant in Jesus Christ beseeches God that he will please to supply the defect of his present Prayers imploring protection by the Merits and Suffrages of the most blessed Virgin of the Apostles Martyrs and all Saints PArticipating in the same Communion and Commemorating chiefly the ever glorious Virgin Mary Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ the blessed Apostles and Martyrs Peter and Paul Andrew James John Thomas James Philip Bartholomew Matthew Simon and Thadeus Linus Cletus Clement Xistus Cornelius Cyprian Laurence Chrysoganus John and Paul Cosmas and Damianus and of all Saints by whose Merits and Prayers be pleased to grant that in all things we may be protected by thee Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen The Priest spreads his hands over the Host and Chalice in testimony that he offers up himself to God together with this Sacrifice begging four things 1. That he will please to accept of this Offering 2. That he will grant us Peace 3. That he will deliver us from Everlasting Death 4. That he will place us amongst the blessed WE beseech thee O Lord therefore graciously to accept this oblation of our servitude as likewise of thy whole Family granting us Peace in our days and preserving us from Eternal Death place among thy Elect. Through Christ our Lord. Amen The Priest beseecheth God to receive and bless this Offering so as that he will please to accept of it and that it may become the Body and Blood of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ to expiate our sins and reconcile us to his Majesty WE beseech thee O God that thou wilt be pleased to make this Oblation blessed approved effectual reasonable and acceptable that it may be made unto us the Body and Blood of thy most beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ The Consecration After this Prayer the Priest comes to the principal action of the Sacrifice and commemorates all that Christ did or said when he instituted this Holy Sacrament and therefore after his example he blesseth and consecrateth the Bread in the same manner WHo the day before his Passion took the Bread into his holy and venerable hands and lifting his eyes towards heaven to thee his God and omnipotent Father to thee giving thanks he blessed broke and gave to his Disciples saying Take and eat ye all of this FOR THIS IS MY BODY The Elevation of the Host. Here the Priest after he hath upon his knees adored the Body of Jesus Christ he lifts it up to be seen and adored by the Faithful and to mind them that Christ's Body was elevated upon the Cross The Consecration of the Blood of Jesus Christ. He blesseth and consecrateth the Wine as Christ consecrated it turning the Wine into his Blood whereby he established and ratified his New Testament and signed the New Alliance he contracted with us to continue for ever IN like manner after he had supt taking this excellent Chalice into his holy and venerable hands giving thee also thanks he blessed it and gave it to his Disciples saying Take and drink ye all of this FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD OF THE NEW AND EVERLASTING TESTAMENT a Mystery of Faith WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS This as often as you shall do you shall do in memory of me The Elevation of the Chalice And then adoring the Blood of our Saviour he elevates it for the same reason as he did the Body And as he offers this Holy Sacrifice in the Person of Christ in whose stead he hath celebrated this mysterious Consecration so is it done in the Name of the Church in honour of the three Mysteries of the Son of God viz. Of his Passion which we account from the Hour of his Conception till his Death of his Resurrection and Ascension The Signs of the Cross which the Priest makes over the Host after Consecration design unto us the particular manner of his immolation WHerefore O Lord we thy servants and the sanctified people also being mindful both of the blessed Passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord and of his Resurrection as also of his glorious Ascension into Heaven we offer unto thy most excellent Majesty of thy Gifts bestowed upon us A pure Host a holy Host an immaculate Host the Holy Bread of Eternal Life and Chalice of Perpetual Salvation The Priest beseeches God to accept of this Sacrifice in memory of Abel's Sacrifice of Abraham's and Melchisedeck's which were only Figures of this WHich we beseech thee propitiously to regard and to receive this Holy Sacrifice and Immaculate Host as thou wert pleased to receive the Gifts of thy just Child Abel and the Sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham as likewise that which thy High Priest Melchisedeck offered unto thee Supplices te rogamus Jesus Christ communicates his Substance to the blessed in Heaven without Veil or Sacraments though he communicates himself sacramentally to men on earth and as the wicked are indifferently mixt with the just upon Earth it happens that the wicked receive the Communion in distinctly with the just but it is otherwise in Heaven where the Son of God communicates himself only to the Saints And hereupon the Priest on the behalf of the Faithful asks God's grace that Jesus Christ who in the Holy Scriptures is called the Angel of the Great Council and of the New Testament will give himself unto them under the shadow of this Holy Sacrament as he gives himself to the blessed without veil on the sublime and celestial Altar in the bosom of his Divinity that is to say that as all those are worthy who receive Christ in Heaven as being Saints so he would please to furnish all these with such his blessings and celestial gifts as may enable
to his Church And that this Peace is a reflection of that which he possesses infinitely in the Glory and Bosom of the Holy Trinity and which is fully communicated to the blessed The Priest begs this Peace for the Faithful and prays God that they may never fail of it THe Peace of our Lord abide always with you The People crave the same for him And with thy Spirit Haec Commixtio c. Then the Priest puts this part of the Host into the Chalice to signifie the happy state of the Church in our Saviour's Resurrection and glory after the union of his Body with his Blood and beseeches God to make us partakers of that happiness by vertue of this Sacrament LEt this Commixtion and Consecration of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be unto me and to all that receive effectual to life everlasting Amen Agnus Dei c. As Sin is the onely Obstacle of this Divine Peace and our Bliss the Priest confessing in the name of the Faithful that we never are without sins in this life and that it is onely Christ who blots them out having been pleased to be sacrificed as an innocent Lamb for our attonement with God his Father and to settle this Peace between Heaven and Earth which sin had divided he implores mercy by this act of Adoration taught us by Saint John the fore-runner of our Saviour Behold the Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world LAmb of God who takest away the sins of the World have mercy on us Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the World have mercy on us Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the World grant us peace In Masses for the Dead instead of saying Have Mercy on us Or Grant us Peace We say Grant them Rest Grant them Eternal Rest Because the dead being no longer in this World amongst us we have no occasion to beg peace with them and they being in a state of Grace where they are in peace and assurance of their salvation it would be in vain to ask God's grace to free them from sin and give them peace assuring them of their salvation we beseech God to deliver them from the pains they endure at present and grant them eternal rest which they expect Domine Jesu Christe qui dixisti c. Peace being the chief disposition of this Sacrament it being the Sacrament of Union and Charity the Priest begs it for the Faithful who are to receive this Holy Communion and acknowledging that he being a sinner deserves not that his Prayers should be heard he humbly beseeches his Majesty to have regard unto his own goodness who has vouchsafed to offer this Peace and to the Faith of the Church which demands it of him O Lord Jesus Christ who didst say unto thy Apostles Peace I leave unto you regard not my Sins but look upon the Faith of thy Church and according to thy pleasure give us Peace and Union Who livest and reignest God for ever and ever Amen At Solemn Mass the Priest having kissed the Altar to signifie that he receives peace from Jesus Christ gives it to the Deacon by a kiss to transmit it to the Faithful Peace be with you The Deacon receiving this Peace testifies his concurrence by his words And with thy Spirit At Masses for the Dead the Pax is not given to the Faithful nor is the foregoing Prayer said because the Faithful do not receive the Communion at those Masses and for other reasons before mentioned The Priest after he has prayed for the Faithful he prays for himself to obtain all requisite dispositions to receive the Holy Eucharist worthily O Lord Jesus Christ Son of the living God who according to thy Father's will the Holy Ghost co-operating by thy death didst give life to the World deliver me by this thy most holy Body and Blood from all my sins and from all evil and making me always obedient to thy commands grant that I be never separated from thee Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest c. GRant O Lord Jesus Christ that this participation of thy Body which I now however unworthy presume to receive be not to my Judgment and Condemnation but through thy mercy may avail to the safeguard of my Soul and Body and likewise as a wholsome remedy Who livest and reignest with God the Father c. Then with bending knee having adored the blessed Sacrament taking the Host in his hands and considering that he is to receive his Creator he puts his trust in his mercy saying I Will take this Heavenly Bread and call upon the Name of our Lord. And representing how acceptable the Centurians humility was to the Son of God where he was pleased to honour his house in imitation of him he professeth himself unworthy of so great a favour and striking his breast he repeats the same words thrice LOrd I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter into my house say but the word and my soul shall be healed Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter into my house say but the word and my soul shall be healed Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter into my house say but the word and my soul shall be healed In receiving the Body of our Saviour he makes the sign of the Cross with the Host to mind us that 't is the Body of Jesus Christ which hath been exposed to death for our salvation THe Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul to life everlasting Amen In taking the Chalice he gives God thanks for the Benefits he receives by the Communion of the Blood of Christ using these following words out of the 15th and 17th Psalm WHat shall I render to our Lord for all things that he hath given to me I will take the Chalice of Salvation and will Invocate the Name of our Lord. Praising I will Invocate our Lord and I shall be saved from my enemies In receiving the Blood of our Saviour he makes the sign of the Cross with the Chalice representing thereby that it is Christ's Blood which he shed to save us and says THe Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul to life everlasting Amen Then taking Wine into the Chalice to wash his mouth and fingers to the end that the least particle of the Sacrament may not remain thereon and to instruct us of the care we ought to have to preserve our selves in purity he says GRant O Lord what we have taken with our mouth we may receive with a pure mind and that of a temporal gift it may become to us an everlasting remedy In taking the second Lotion he says LEt thy Body which I have received O Lord and thy Blood which I have drank cleave unto my bowels and grant that no stain of sin may remain in me whom thy pure and holy Sacrament hath satiated Who livest and reignest for ever and ever Amen Then the Priest
gives God thanks for the benefits he has received by this Communion in this Antiphon which is called Communion The COMMUNION taken out of the 26th Chapter of St. Matthew Wherein the Church teaches us that Jesus Christ for the love of us would take upon himself our infirmities and frailties and fulfil all things requisite for our salvation according to the will of his Father with excellent order conduct and wisdom to teach us that we ought patiently to suffer for his sake renouncing our own wills and resigning our selves entirely unto God FAther if this Cup cannot pass but that I must drink it thy will be done The POST-COMMUNION The Faithful beseech God's grace that being healed of their sins and having our Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts by virtue of this Holy Sacrifice the representation of his Passion and Death they may have no other will but his that so doing all things agreeable they may thereby work their salvation GRant O Lord by the operation of this Mystery that we may be cleansed from our sins and obtain an accomplishment of our just desires Through our Lord c. Mass being ended the Priest turns towards the Faithful and exhorting them not to make themselves unworthy of God's assistance says Our Lord be with you They answer And with thy Spirit Mass being ended Ita missa est that is You may depart is not said but Benedicamus Domino that is Let us bless our Lord as in all Masses where Gloria in excelsis is not said whereby to admonish the Faithful that these are days of pennance on which 't was the custom formerly to continue in the Church at Prayers some time after Mass Let us bless our Lord. The Faithful answer Thanks be to God The Priest bowing in the midst of the Altar says ACcept O Holy Trinity this Oblation of my servitude and grant that though this Sacrifice be presented thy Divine Majesty by my unworthy hands yet that through thy mercy it may be acceptable to thee and propitiatory for me and all other for whom I have offered it Through Christ our Lord. Then kissing the Altar to receive God's blessing he gives it to the People saying Almighty God Father Son and Holy Ghost bless you Amen Mass being ended the Priest admonishes the Faithful to keep the Union they have with Jesus Christ Our Lord be with you And with thy Spirit Then the Priest reads Saint John's Gospel which relates of the Birth of the Word and the highest Mysteries of Divinity to teach us that the end of this Holy Mystery is to make us happy for all Eternity by a visible participation of the Divinity which Christ communicates under Vells unto us in this life having taken upon him our humanity in his Incarnation and covering himself under the Species of Bread and Wine in this adorable Sacrament to accommodate himself to the weakness of our Mortality The beginning of the Holy Gospel according to St. John The People answer Glory be to thee O Lord. IN the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word This was in the beginning with God All things were made by him and without him was made nothing which was made In him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shined in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it There was a man sent from God whose name was John This man came for testimony to give testimony of the light It was the true light which lightneth every man that cometh into this world He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not He came into his own and his own received him not because as many as received him he gave them power to be made the sons of God to those that believe in his Name who not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God are born And the Word was made flesh and dwelt in us and we saw the glory as it were of the onely begotten of the Father full of grace and verity The Faithful give God thanks beseeching him not to suffer them to be so unhappy as in their persons to prevent this end of this Divine Sacrifice R. Thanks be to God Saint John's Gospel is always said at the end of Mass unless a double Feast fall upon a Sunday or a Feria which hath a proper Gospel which then is read instead of St. John's Gospel except on the Fourth Sunday in Advent in case it fall on Christmass-Eve On the third Mass upon Christmass-day the Gospel for Twelfth-day is read At private Masses on Palm-Sunday the Gospel for the Blessing of Palms is read and all the Lent no Gospel proper of the Vigils are used THE MASS FOR MUNDAY IN Holy Week The Station to St. Praxede Church To teach us by the example of St. Praxede that those who employ themselves in burying of Christ's members and in other works of Piety shall partake of the Merits of Mary Magdalene commended in this day's Gospel for her provident burial of our Saviour in anointing him with precious Persumes The INTROIT taken out of the 34th Psalm Whereby the Church represents unto us the Prayer which Jesus Christ offered up to God the Father when he suffered death for the salvation of Mankind wherein he begs that his Persecutors should not triumph over his death but that when they should think themselves victorious in that they were able to put him to death he would discover their weakness unto them and manifest his power in restoring him to that life wherein we shall have a share JUdge O Lord them that hurt me overthrow them that impugn me take Armour and Shield and rise up to help me O Lord who art the strength of my salvation PSALM XXXIV BRing forth the sword and shut up against them that persecute me Say to my soul I am thy salvation Judge O Lord c. KYRIE ELEISON c. as before pag. 36. The Faithful considering that Jesus Christ by his sufferings hath passed to life beseech God by the Merits of his Son's Passion that they may participate in his life and salvation COLLECT ALmighty God who knowest us unable to subsist through our own infirmity among so many evils grant that we may respire by the Merits of thy Son's Passion Who liveth and reigneth one God in the unity of the Holy Ghost for ever and ever Amen Against the Persecutors of the Church WE beseech thee O Lord admit being appeased the Prayers of thy Church that all Adversities and Errors being destroyed it may serve thee in secure liberty Through our Lord c. For the Pope O God the Pastor and Governour of all Faithful thou being merciful favourably respect thy Servant N. whom thou hast raised to the dignity of Chief Pastor of thy Church Grant him we beseech thee in Word and Example to profit those whom he hath charge over to the
end that together with the Flock committed to him he may come unto life everlasting Through our Lord c. The Lesson taken out of the Prophet Isay Chap. 50. The Church teacheth us by this Prophesie that Jesus Christ who neither had or could commit a sin had not suffered death but that he voluntarily exposed himself thereto taking our sins upon him to free us and make satisfaction for us to the Divine Justice No circumstance of his Passion was concealed from him He foresaw all the hardships and ignominies and though humane nature were against it yet he freely submitted himself to the will of his Father which he also faithfully performed But in suffering for us he hath left an Example and Obligation upon us to imitate him in afflictions with a perfect submission to the will of God and an entire confidence in his bounty IN those days said Isaias The Lord God hath opened my ear and I do not gainsay I am not gone backward I have given my body to the strikers and my cheeks to the pluckers I have not turned away my face from the rebukers and spitters The Lord God is my helper therefore am I not confounded Therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock and I know that I shall not be confounded He is near that justifies me who shall gainsay me Let us stand together who is my adversary let him come to me Behold the Lord God my helper who is he that shall contemn me lo they shall all be destroyed as a garment the moth shall eat them Which of you fears our Lord hears the voice of his servant Who hath walked in darkness and hath no light let him hope in the Name of our Lord and lean upon his God The GRADUAL taken out of 34th Psalm By these Verses as by this Lesson out of the Prophet Isay the Church hints unto us the Miseries which must befal the authors of our Saviour's Death It is moreover a Prayer which our Saviour says to God the Father as well in his own Person as in his Churches forasmuch as concerns himself he asks of his Father to clear his innocence and make known the injustice of his Persecutors As in respect to his Church he teacheth us that by the Peoples praying that their souls may be delivered from their enemies the meaning is that an apprehension of worldly miseries may not make them do such things as are unlawful For though God accomplish his will even before or without being prayed unto either by withdrawing the affliction or by giving courage to his servants patiently to bear it Yet it is his pleasure that men should address unto him by Prayer and Thanksgiving in all their occasions because thereby they reap advantage ARise O Lord and attend to my judgment my God my Lord unto my cause Bring forth the Word and shut up against them that persecute me The TRACT out of the 102 and 78 Psalm The Faithful confessing that their sins render them unworthy of God's favours place all their confidence in his bounty and implore his mercy for his nonour and glories sake since he hath vouchsafed to take upon him the quality of their Saviour O Lord do not unto us according to our sins nor according to our iniquities reward us V. Remember not O Lord our old iniquities let thy mercies quickly prevent us because we are become exceeding poor V. Help us O God our Saviour and for the glory of thy Name O Lord deliver us and be propitious to our sins for thy Name-sake MUNDA COR MEUM c. as before pag. 14. The sequence of the Holy Gospel according to St. John Chap. 12. The Church herein represents Judas unto us who after he had seen so many Miracles after he had wrought some according to the power given him with the other Apostles after he heard so many important truths both of Heaven and Hell after he had been admitted to the Table with Christ after he had received as a special mark of friendship and confidence the Purse to distribute Alms to the Poor was yet so transported with the excess of covetousness as to betray and sell him Whereby we may observe that nothing withdraws so much from our Salvation as our being fixt to the Affairs of this World As on the other side by the example of St. Mary Magdalene we see there is nothing makes us more agreeable to God nor more worthy his protection than works of Charity whereupon three things are observable 1. That Opportunities are offered for us to do Good which we ought not to let slip lest they be lost 2. That we ought not to delay assisting our Neighbour till he be in necessity but endeavour to prevent it 3. That we are obliged so to do good works that we may edifie the good without regard of displeasing the wicked JEsus six days before the Pasche came to Bethania where Lazarus was that had been dead whom Jesus raised and they made him a supper there and Martha ministred but Lazarus was one of them that sate at the table with him Mary therefore took a pound of precious Oyntment and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair and the house was fill'd with the odour of the Oyntment One therefore of his Disciples Judas Iscariot he that was to betray him said Why was not this Oyntment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor And he said this not because he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and having the purse carried the things that were put in Jesus therefore said Let her alone that she may keep it for the day of my burial for the poor you have always with you but me you shall not have always A great multitude therefore of the Jews knew that he was there and they came not for Jesus onely but to see Lazarus whom he rais'd from the dead The OFFERTORY out of the 142 Psalm The Church teacheth us that if Jesus Christ who as he is God equal to his Father taking the form of a servant and speaking as such and coming so for our sakes shews us that by permitting Judas his treason he did not his own but his Father's will since naturally we desire to be delivered from pains and sufferings how much more ought we by a just contempt of our own will to endeavour a conformity to the will of God DEliver me from my enemies to thee I have fled teach me to do thy will because thou art my God SUSCIPE SANCTE PATER c. as before pag. 56. The SECRET The Faithful beg God's grace that they may conform entirely to his will and contemn the perishable goods of this world the coveting whereof caused Judas his damnation and by the exercise of the works of Piety whereby Saint Mary Magdalene became sanctified to the end they may reap the Benefits of Christ's Passion represented by this Sacrifice of the Altar which applies the merit
of it to them GRant omnipotent God that being purified by the vertue of these Sacrifices we may arrive with the greater purity to their fountain Through our Lord c. The SECRET Against the Persecutors of the Church PRotect O Lord those that assist at these Mysteries that intending holy things they may serve thee both in soul and body Through our Lord. Or for the Pope REceive O Lord graciously these our offerings and guide by thy continual grace thy Servant N. whom thou hast advanced to be Chief Pastor of thy Church Through our The Preface and Canon of the Mass c. is until the Communion as before pag. 60. unto pag. 79. The COMMUNION taken out of the 34th Psalm The Church telling us the evil the Jews drew upon themselves in their crucifying Jesus Christ instructs them the punishment those deserve who receiving the Sacrament of the Altar unworthily make themselves guilty of prophaning the Body and Blood of Christ committing that frequently in their hearts which the Jews onely once perpetrated upon Mount Calvary LEt them blush and be ashamed together that rejoyce at my evils let them be clothed with confusion and shame that speak malicious things against me The POST-COMMUNION The Faithful beg of God grace to receive this Holy Sacrament worthily to the end they may reap the benefit of Christ's Passion GRant O Lord that thy holy Mysteries may inspire us with a divine fervour that in celebrating them we may also be delighted with the fruit of them Through our Lord c. POST-COMMUNION Against the Persecutors of the Church O Lord our God we beseech thee to preserve those from falling through humane frailties whom thou hast vouchsafed to a participation in this Holy Communion Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. Or for the Pope PRotect us O Lord we beseech thee by the participation of this Divine Sacrament and strengthen thy Servant N. whom thou hast advanced to be Chief Pastor of thy Church that he and the Flock committed to his charge may attain Eternal Life Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. As the Post-Communion is a Prayer which the Priest says for those who have communicated so the Church adds another for those that do not communicate lest they want the suffrages when they are most subject to the assaults of the Devil in exercises of penance as also to obtain grace for those that have received the blessed Sacrament A Prayer over the People Humble your selves and bow down your heads to God O God who art our salvation afford us thy succour and grant that we may solemnize the approaching Feasts in memory of those Benefits wherewith thou hast been pleased to refresh us Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son c. All the rest as before pag. 75. THE MASS FOR TUESDAY IN Holy Week The station at St. Priscas-Church That the Cross of Christ may triumph in that very place where lately the Heathens had built their Prime Temple and that where the Gentiles adoring Hercules his Idol and been seduced from the Worship of the True God by putting confidence in their own strength there the Christian Church should withdraw men from self-love to the love of their Redeemer who being God was pleased to take upon him our frail nature and partake of our infirmities to reconcile us by his humility to God the Father from whom through Pride we had so far seperated our selves Likewise the station is this day in Rome at St. Priscas-Church by whose example she being but a Virgin of the age of Thirteen underwent great Torments for the Faith of Christ we may be moved to suffer for his love The INTROIT taken out of the 6th Chapter of the Apostle St. Paul to the Galathians and out of the 66th Psalm The Church teaches us by the example and words of the Apostle St. Paul that we ought to look upon the Cross of Christ as our only glory for by it we were delivered from the Tyranny of the Devil and raised from the Death of Sin as we shall be raised from our corporal death By it Christ confers the Life of Grace upon us in this World as he will hereafter give us the Life of Glory in Eternal Bliss 'T is true that to glory in the Cross of Christ we must suffer many hardships but then how great is the glory prepared by God for the just who suffer with patience what will their felicity be but a Crown in Heaven in recompence for their Vertues in this Pilgrimage and immortal incomprehensible Rewards for short and temporal sufferings The compleat consummation of their happiness shall be at the Day of Judgment when Christ raising them from death to life will inanimate them all with his happy life and holy spirit as all the members of one body are inspirited and enlivened by one soul BUT it behoveth us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom is our salvation life and resurrection by whom we are saved and delivered PSALM LXVI As the Sacrifice of the Cross is an effect of God's mercy so his grace whereby we come to the knowledge of this inestimable benefit and to make our selves worthy to reap the advantage of it is an effect of his goodness and mercy which we ought to pray for GOD have mercy on us and bless us illuminate his countenance upon us and have mercy on us Nos autem c. Kyrie eleison c. as before pag. 36. The COLLECT The Faithful beseech God that they may receive the fruit of the Passion of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ ALmighty and Everlasting God grant us thy grace so to celebrate the Mysteries of the Passion of our Saviour that through thy mercies we may reap the benefit Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. Against the Persecutors of the Church Ecclesiae tuae quaesumus c. as before pag. 84. Or for the Pope Deus omnium as before pag. 85. The Lesson out of the Prophet Jeremy Chap. 11. The Church in this Lession which describes the Jews conspiracy against the Prophet Jeremy by figure represents unto us the suffering of Jesus Christ under that nation and the evils they drew upon themselves by that excess of wickedness Let us observe how the Prophet threatens them with the punishments prepared for them not through hatred or malice but in zeal to God's service considering their reprobation as decreed by Divine Providence being so revealed unto him IN those days saith Jeremias O Lord thou hast shewed me and I have known thou hast shewed me their studies And I as a mild lamb that is carried to a victim And I knew not that they devised councels against me saying Let us cast wood on his bread and rase him out of the land of the living and let his name be mentioned no more But thou O Lord of Sabaoth which judgest justly and provest the reins and the hearts let me see thy revenge of them for to thee I have revealed
together at that sight and saw the things that were done returned knocking their breasts And all his acquaintance stood afar off and the women that had followed him from Galilee seeing these things ANd behold a man named Joseph who was a Senator a good man and a just he had not consented to their council and doings of Arimathea a city of Jewry who also himself expected the Kingdom of God This man came to Pilate and asked the body of Jesus And taking it down wrapped it in sindon and laid him in a monument hewed of stone wherein never yet any man had been laid The OFFERTORY taken out of the 101st Psalm The Church represents unto us how our Saviour in his Passion became a figure of his Martyrs who desiring to be freed from death by humane instinct and as it were forsaken by him for a time in that he granted not that unto them whilst they suffered which they might seem to desire by their natural inclinations might repeat from the bottom of their hearts those words full of love and piety which our Saviour as an example of these generous champions spoke himself Father if it be possible let this cup of sufferings pass from me that I taste it not but let thy will be done not mine O Lord hear my prayer and let my cry come unto thee turn not thy face from me c. SUSCIPE SANCTE PATER till the Secret as before pag. 56 57 58. The SECRET The Faithful meditating upon our Saviour's Passion beseech God to grant them desires and resentments of love and duty and to excite us the rather we must confess our own sms and reflect that they were the cause of our Saviour's Crucifying Secondly We must consider the eternal torments which we have merited that so we may with consent undergo any torments in life Thirdly Let us contemplate that we shall have an eternal recompence whereunto we aspire by the grace of Jesus Christ and confess that all the afflictions of this life are not worthy to be compared to the future Glory Fourthly We must call to mind all the pains our Saviour indured for us having frequently in our thoughts how much his Divine Majesty suffered for us his unprofitable servants should not without confusion to our selves be unwilling to suffer but readily and cheerfully for our benefits undergo these temporal light pains ACcept O Lord we beseech thee this Offering and grant that we may receive with pious affections and resentments that which we celebrate in memory of the Passion of our Lord thy Son Through the same Jesus Christ c. Against the Persecutors of the Church Protege nos c. as before pag. 90. Or for the Pope Oblatus c. as before pag. 90. The Preface Canon c. till the Communion as before from 60 to 70. The COMMUNION out of the 101st Psalm The Church tells us that in receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which represents to us his Passion and as it were incorporates us with him we ought to imprint in our hearts a lively apprehension of this adorable Saviour who being presented upon the Cross with Gall and Vinegar to drink besought God his Father with abundance of tears and loud crys to grant us life everlasting in participation of his Sufferings and Resurrection I Mingled my drink with tears because lifting me up thou hast thrown me down and I withered away like grass but thou O Lord endurest for ever Thou rising up shalt have mercy on Sion because it is time to have mercy on it The POST-COMMUNION The Faithful beseech God to withdraw their irregular affections from these worldly fading goods and to make them apprehend how as they are Christians their happiness is not to be placed in this temporal life wherein God oftentimes delivers them up unto persecutions even unto death But that they are to regard Eternity to which the Name of Christian entitles them Therefore they are to consider that he whose Name they bear was so treated before them to teach them by his example to contemn this world and to aspire Celestial Blessings which he by the Merits of his Death and Passion hath opened unto them GRant O Almighty God we beseech thee that we may with a holy confidence believe that thou hast opened a passage for us to Eternal Life by the Temporal Death of thy Son represented in these Adorable Mysteries Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ Against the Persecutors of the Church Quaesumus Domine c. as before pag. 91. Or for the Pope Haec nos quaesumus as before pag. 91. Let us Pray Humble your selves and bow down your heads to God LOok down O Lord we beseech thee upon this thy Family for which our Lord Jesus Christ doubted not to be betrayed into the hands of the wicked and so undergo the torments of the Cross Who liveth and reigneth with thee c. All the rest as before pag. 79. 〈◊〉 Hollar focit UPON THURSDAY IN Holy Week AT PRIME Pater noster c. Ave Maria c. Credo c. Deus in adjutorium is not here said to mind us that Jesus Christ was abandoned by God the Father to sufferings and death Nor is any Hymn used to instruct us that the Jews had dishonoured God by putting his Son to death PSALM LIII In this Psalm the Church proposeth unto us a certain model of perfect Prayer First We ought to beg of God what may conduce to our salvation Secondly We ought to ask it in the Name of our Saviour Jesus Christ for there is no other Name given to men by which they can be saved Thirdly We must have a firm faith in God's omnipotence Fourthly We are to look upon God as our Judge who gives to every man according to his works and therefore the confidence wherewith we pray is grounded upon the testimony of our conscience that it is not guilty of any thing which may render us unworthy to present our selves before his Divine Majesty Fifthly We must place all our confidence in God's mercy in the verity of his promises and not in our merits Sixthly We are to beg the grace to love justice so that no persecution whatever may cause us to swerve from it Seventhly We must not desire punishment upon the wicked out of hatred or revenge but out of charity for their correction as long as there is hopes of their amendment and to the end that others by their chastisements may fear to imitate them and that the empire of sin being overcome God alone may reign in this world Eightly We ought to beg that the adversities and misfortunes of this life may not deject us nor prosperity charm our senses and affections but that we may rely upon God and glorifie him Ninthly And to glorifie God as we ought we must offer up our selves to him in the spirit of sacrifice and annihilation that is of Pennance Tenthly The service and duty we offer up to God must
be free not servile Eleventhly We must acknowledge our selves unable to make a voluntary and true offering of our selves if the grace God do not deliver us from our sins which we must pray for from our very hearts O God save me in thy Name and in thy strength judge me O God hear my prayer with thine ears receive the words of my mouth Because strangers have risen up against me and the strong have sought my soul and they have not set God before their eyes For behold God helped me and our Lord is the receiver of my soul Turn away the evils to mine enemies and in thy truth destroy them I will voluntarily sacrifice to thee and will confess to thy Name O Lord because it is good Because thou hast delivered me out of all tribulation and mine eye hath looked down upon mine enemies PSALM 118 or 119. The Royal Prophet teaches us in the first part of this 118th Psalm that mans true felicity consists in living free from sin and in keeping God's law for his love and because he so commands us Secondly He teacheth us that to observe the law of God as we ought we must ask his grace to learn it from our youth Thirdly How that knowing it we must praise his Majesty and beg his grace to observe it with a true heart void of fear or confusion Fourthly That to render us worthy of this grace of perseverance in the obedience of divine law we ought to meditate continually upon it it must be the object of our entertainment and we must have a greater care and pleasure to accomplish it than worldly covetous men have to get and preserve their perishing riches BLessed are the immaculate in the way which walk in the law of our Lord. Blessed are they that search his testimonies that seek after him with all their heart For they that work iniquity have not walked in his ways Thou hast very much commanded thy commandments to be kept Would God my ways might be directed to keep thy justifications Then shall I not be confounded when I shall look throughly in all thy commandments I will confess to the indirection of heart in that I have learned the judgments of thy justice I will keep thy justifications forsake me not wholly Wherein doth a young man correct his way in keeping thy words With my whole heart I have sought after thee repel me not from thy commandments In my heart I have hid thy words that I may not sin to thee Blessed art thou O Lord teach me thy justifications In my lips I have pronounced all the judgments of thy mouth I am delighted in the way of thy testimonies as in all riches I will be exercised in thy commandments and I will consider thy ways I will meditate in thy justifications I will not forget thy words In this second part of this 118 or 119 Psalm the Prophet David farther teacheth us the conduct which God is pleased to use to those who with a faithful heart intend the observing his Commandments 1. God brings to their knowledge that this life is but as death that so they may be brought to find out the true life which consists in knowing and loving him 2. He shews them that in this world men are intangled in sin and ignorance to the end to raise them to a desire to be enlightened by his grace 3. God inspires them with a consideration that this life is but a banishment that looking upon themselves as strangers and exiled persons surrounded with ambushes enemies and miseries they may thirst after their true country which is Heaven 4. God exercises the Faithful by persecutions and other traverses that so he may bring them to conform and submit to his will 5. He often permits them to be perplext and disquieted to humble and make them sensible of their own weakness and the want they have of God's continual assistance to the end they make their addresses unto him placing all their hopes in his mercy and not in their own strength 6. God frees them from sin and confirms them in vertue dilates and enlarges their hearts by filling them with his love that they may with exact diligence and fervent perseverance walk in his paths REnder to thy servant quicken me and I shall keep thy words Reveal mine eyes and I shall consider the marvellous things of thy law I am a sojourner in the land hide not thy commandments from me My soul hath coveted to desire thy justifications at all time Thou hast rebuked the proud cursed are they that decline from thy commandments Take from me reproach and contempt because I have sought after thy testimonies For princes sate and they spake against me but thy servant was exercised in thy justifications For both thy testimonies are my meditation and thy justifications my counsel My soul hath cleaved to the pavement quicken me according to thy word I have uttered my ways and thou hast heard me teach me thy justifications Instruct me the way of thy justifications and I shall be exercised in thy marvellous works My soul hath slumbered for tediousness confirm me in thy words Remove from me the way of iniquity and according to thy law have mercy on me I have chosen the way of truth I have not forgotten thy judgments I have cleaved to thy testimonies O Lord do not confound me I ran the way of thy commandments when thou didst dilate my heart CHrist became obedient unto death for us Pater noster c. Ave Maria c. Miserere mei Deus c. as before pag. 6. At the Third Hour Pater noster c. Ave Maria c. In this third part of the 118th or 119th Psalm the Prophet represents unto us the state of a soul which God hath dilated And first he shews us the need we have of an abundant and omnipotent grace to acquit our selves of our obligations 2. That we must stand vigilantly upon our guard lest the tempations arising from covetousness or other exteriour and sensible objects trespass upon our modesty temperance or chastity 3. That with resolution and courage we ought to repel and overcome the reproaches and persecutions of the wicked SEt me a law O Lord the way of thy justifications and I will seek after it always Give me understanding and I will search thy law and I will keep it with my whole heart Conduct me into the path of thy Commandments because I would it Incline my heart into thy testimonies and not into avarice Turn away mine eyes that they may see not vanity in thy way quicken me Establish thy Word to thy servant in thy fear Take away reproach which I have feared because thy judgments are pleasant Behold I have coveted thy Commandments in thy equity quicken me And let thy mercie come upon me Lord thy salvation according to thy Word And I shall answer a word to them that upbraid me because I have hoped in thy words And take not away out
is God V. The love of Jesus Christ hath united us V. Let us rejoyce and praise him V. Let us fear and love the living God V. And love one another with a sincere heart Then the Antiphon is repeated Where charity and love is there is God V. When therefore we are assembled V. Let us beware we are not divided in mind V. Let all quarrels and contentions cease V. And let Christ be among us Then the Antiphon is repeated the third time Where charity and love is there is God V. Grant that we may see with the blessed V. Thy face in glory O Christ our Lord. V. There to enjoy a happy and immense joy V. For ever and ever Amen Then the Superior or he that washes the feet of others washeth his hands wipes them and putting on his Coap he stands upright with his head bare says Pater noster c. V. And lead us not into temptation R. But deliver us from evil V. Thou hast enjoyned O Lord R. That thy Laws be exactly observed V. Thou hast washed thy Disciples feet R. Despise not the work of thy hands V. O Lord hear my Prayer R. And let my cry come unto thee V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy Spirit Let us Pray GRant O Lord we beseech thee that we may worthily discharge this our duty and since thou vouchsafest to wash thy Disciples feet despise not the work of thy hands which thou hast commanded us to retain and imitate that as we here cleanse all filth from our Bodies so thou wilt be pleased to free our Souls from all sins Which we beseech thee to grant us who livest and reignest God for ever and ever Amen THE MASS FOR THURSDAY IN Holy Week The station in the Church of St. John of Lateran This day in Rome the station is in this Church because the Pope did formerly bless the Holy Oyls there upon this day The INTROIT The Church representing to us in this Mass how our Saviour instituted the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist it being the Eve of his Passion as a perpetual Monument and to apply the fruit of it unto us she teacheth us by the example and words of Saint Paul that we ought to look upon the Cross of Christ as our onely glory for it is by its vertue that we are freed from the tyranny of the Devil that we are raised from death It is by it that Jesus Christ grants from corporal death of sin as we must be raised to the life of grace in this world as he will hereafter he will when he pleases give us the Life of Glory in Everlasting Bliss 'T is true that to glory in the Cross of Christ we must suffer much But what will that glory be which God hath prepared for the patience of the just what will their happiness be when for their vertues in this exile he shall give them crowns in heaven for short and temporary pains immortal and incomprehensible rewards The consummation of their felicity will be at the day of judgment when Jesus Christ after he hath raised them again shall inanimate them with his happy life and spirit as all the members of one body are filled and enlivened by one soul BUt we ought to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom is our Salvation Life and Resurrection and by whom we are redeemed and saved PSALM LXVI As the Sacrifice of the Cross is an effect of God's Mercy so his Grace whereby we are enlightened to acknowledge this inestimable benefit and whereby we are made worthy to reap the fruit of it is an effect of his Bounty and Mercy which we ought to beg of him GOd have mercy upon us and bless us illuminate his countenance upon us and have mercy upon us But we ought to glory c. KYRIE ELEISON LOrd have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us Lord have mercy on us All the rest as before pag. 30â— As the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist is a Consequent and Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God on this day whereon our Saviour instituted this most venerable Sacrament the Church commands that Hymn to be sung which the Angels did sing at his Birth GLory be to God in the Highest and on Earth peace to men of good will We praise thee we bless thee we adore thee we glorifie thee we give thanks to thee for thy great glory O Lord God Heavenly King God the Father Almighty O Lord the onely begotten Son Jesus Christ O Lord God Lamb of God Son of the Father who takest away the Sins of the World have mercy on us Thou that takest away the Sins of the World receive our Prayers Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father have mercy on us For thou onely art Holy Thou onely art the Lord Thou onely O Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost art most high in the Glory of God the Father Amen The Bells are rung during the Gloria in excelsis but are not rung again till Holy Saturday to teach us that the preaching of the Gospel and the voice of those who ought to excite others to follow Christ were silent during this Passion-time The COLLECT The people considering on the one side that Judas having received so many Testimonies of Favour from Jesus Christ after he had been admitted to his Table was yet so blind with covetousness that he betrayed his Master and God into the hands of the Jews who put him to death upon the Cross and transported with despair fell headlong into Hell On the other side the good thief made sensible by his pains repented himself of his sins and acknowledged our dying Saviour's divinity and putting his whole hopes and confidence in him deserved to receive the fruit of his Death and Resurrection They beseech God that they may nor approach his Table as Judas did but may obtain the same Grace with the penitent thief that so they may reap the advantage of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour O God who hast punished the sin of Judas and rewarded the confession of the repenting thief grant unto us the effect of thy mercy to the end that as our Lord Jesus Christ hath dispensed to each of them at his Passion according to their merit so having destroyed the old man in us he will grant us grace to have part with him in his glorious Resurrection Who liveth and reigneth one God world without end This Prayer is only said The Lesson out of the first Epistle of the Apostle St. Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 11. 1. The Apostle blames them for their disorder in their Feasts called Agapae as we have explicated before 2. He treats of the institution of the Eucharist and teacheth us that Christ did institute this Sacrament to renew in us the memory of his incomparable love restified by his dying for us 3. He shewed how we ought to prepare our selves worthily to receive this Adorable Sacrament
and when thy years shall be accomplished thou wilt make thy self known when the time shall come thou wilt be manifested V. And when my soul shall be troubled thou wilt remember thy mercy even in thy wrath V. God will come from Libanus and the Holy One from the shady and dark mountain V. His glory overspread the heavens and the earth was filled with his praise Let us Pray Let us bow our knees R. Lift up your selves The PRAYER The people considering on the one side that Judas having received so many testimonies of favour from Jesus Christ after he had been admitted to his Table was yet so blinded with covetousness that he betrayed his Master and God into the hands of the Jews who put him to death upon the Cross and transported with despair fell headlong into Hell on the other side the good thief made sensible by his pains repented himself of his sins and acknowledged our dying Saviour's divinity and put his whole hopes and confidence in him deserved to receive the fruit of his Death and Resurrection they beseech God that they may not approach his Table as Judas did but may obtain the same grace with the penitent thief that so they may reap the advantage of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour O God who hast punished the sin of Judas and rewarded the confession of the repenting thief grant unto us the effect of thy mercy to the end that as our Lord Jesus Christ hath dispensed to each of them at his Passion according to their merit so having destroyed the old man in us the grace to have part with him in his glorious resurrection Who liveth and reigneth one God world without end The LESSON taken out of the twelfth Chapter of Exodus The Church proposes to us in this Lesson the Ceremony of the Jewish Passover thereby teaching us that Jesus Christ having accomplisht the Solemnity of the ancient Pasche celebrated in memory of the deliverance of the people of Israel out of the Egyptian servitude passed to a new Passover which he is pleased the Church should solemnize in memory of the Redemption which he brought unto the world by giving his body and blood instead of the flesh and blood of the Paschal Lamb. The entire and unspotted Paschal Lamb signified that he who as a sacrifice was one day to be immolated for us should be pure and free from all spot or sin The blood of this Lamb wherewith the Gates of the Israelites were sprinkled to prevent the destroying Angel from involving them in the same slaughter with the first-born of Egypt was a sign that the blood of Christ should be shed for the remission of the sins of God's people The injunction of not breaking a bone of the Paschal Lamb signified that not a bone of Christ should be broken upon the Cross to shew the force and power of his divinity As God instituted the Pasche and commanded the Israelites to eat the Paschal Lamb in memory of the Miracles he had done for them in Egypt so his Son Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of his body and blood in memory of what he had done for us in his Passion The Jews in eating the Paschal Lamb were in a posture of travellers to mind them that they were upon the point of flying out of Egypt into the land of Palestine and therefore they were standing upright having their shooes on with a staff in their hands and to eat it hastily With how much more diligence and activity ought we to eat the Divine Lamb of the New Law since we are to make a longer Voyage viz. from Earth to Heaven The Jews were not to eat the Paschal Lamb but with unleavened bread to teach us that we cannot eat as we ought our Paschal Lamb whereof theirs was but onely a figure unless we purisie our hearts from all filth becoming as a new paste without leaven that is without sin The Jews did eat the Paschal Lamb with wild Lettice to signifie the grief we ought to have for our sins and the bitterness we must conceive to expiate them whereby to pass hence to heaven The number of persons which the Jews were to call together to eat the Paschal Lamb was a figure of that charity we ought to bear to each other to the end we may worthily partake in this Sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ It was commanded not to eat any thing of this Lamb that was raw to teach us that we are not to eat the body of our Lord without the due preparation which God requires of us It was prohibited to be eaten boiled in water and onely to be eaten roasted to instruct us that our love of God ought to be pure in our hearts whereby to make us worthy to eat the flesh of this Divine Lamb without engaging our affections upon the transient pleasures of this life figured by water in the Holy Scripture The Jews did eat the head feet and entrails of the Paschal Lamb to tell us that we must sincerely and firmly believe not only the divinity of Christ figured by the head but his humanity figured by the feet and all the more hidden mysteries of our faith represented by the entrails The blood of this Paschal Lamb was sprinkled on the two side-posts and upon the upper door-post of the house in form of a cross to signifie that by the cross and blood of Christ we are delivered from the tyranny of the devil and servitude of sin And it was further to signifie that to receive worthily this Sacrament of the Passion of our Saviour we must not onely take it with our mouths but with our hearts designing to imitate him by the practice of good works In fine All that remained of this Paschal Lamb was cast into the fire and burnt to observe unto us that when we find our selves incapable of eating this Sacrifice entirely through weakness of spirit or doubting whether that which we see be the body of our Saviour which the Angels themselves are not able to behold we are not then to continue longer in that doubt but cast it into the fire of the holy spirit that it may be there consumed since our weakness is not able to overcome it If not then when we consider that the things that seem impossible unto us cease not to become possible by the vertue of the Holy Ghost IN those days our Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt This month shall be to you the beginning of months it shall be the first in the months of the year Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and say to them The tenth day of this month let every man eat a lamb by their families and houses But if their number be less then may suffice to eat the lamb he shall take unto him his neighbour that joyneth to his house according to the number of souls which may suffice to the eating of
to the true living God and to his only Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Let us Pray Let us bend our knees R. Lift up your selves ALmighty and Everlasting God who willest not the death of sinners but rather that they should be converted and live graciously hear our Prayers and freeing them from their Idolatry admit them into thy holy Church for the honour and glory of thy Name Through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen The Adoration of the Cross This Adoration is not terminated in the wood of the Cross but in Jesus Christ fastened thereon The Ceremony is very ancient For besides that it is set forth in the Roman Order and in St. Gregory's Book of the Sacraments St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola the immortal Ornament and Native of Bourdeaux living in the Fourth Age mentions it in his 11 Epistle to Severus Sulpicius The publick Prayers being ended the Priest puts off his Casuble and takes the Cross to represent Jesus Christ naked and loaded with his Cross Then he uncovers it at three several times to shew us how the Gospel was spred first in a little corner of Judea and for that cause the Priest begins to unvail the Cross on the right side and beneath the Altar singing BEhold the Wood of the Cross And the Quire answers R. Come let us adore Secondly The Gospel was preached publickly to the Jews figured by the right side of the Altar and therefore the Priest coming to the right corner of the Altar uncovers the right arm and the head of the Crucifix saying again Behold the Wood of the Cross The Quire answering R. Come let us adore Thirdly The Gospel was preacht to the whole world and therefore the Priest goes to the middle of the Altar and uncovers the Crucifix entirely saying Behold the Wood of the Cross whereon the Saviour of the World is fastened The Quire answer again R. Come let us adore Then the Priest puts the Cross in a convenient place for the people he first beginning this Ceremony in three times kneeling according to the ancient custom in the Roman Order And after the Priest the rest of the Clergy and people follow in the same manner During the Ceremony the Trisagion is sung both in Latine and Greek being taken from the Grecians as you may read in the first Session of the Council of Chalcedon mentioned by Nicephorus in his 14th Book and 46th Chapter and by it the Church offers to our meditation that Christ dying for us according to his humanity is the living invincible and immortal God by his Natural and Divine Person Then the following Verses are sung taken out of the Prophets and particularly out of Michaeas which contain the just reproaches our Saviour made to the Jews for their ingratitude MY people what have I done to thee or in what have I molested thee Answer me V. Because I brought thee out of the land of Egypt thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour V. Agios O Theos Sanctus Deus O Holy God V. Agios Ischyros Sanctus fortis Holy and strong God V. Agios Athanatos Eleison imas Sanctus immortalis miserere nobis Holy and immortal God have mercy on us V. Because I led thee through the desart forty years and fed thee there with Manna and brought thee into a good soil thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour Agios O Theos c. as before V. What ought I to do more and have not done I have planted thee my most beautiful vine and thou art become very bitter unto me in my thirst thou gavest me vinegar to drink and with a launcet thou hast pierced thy Saviour's side Agios O Theos as before V. My people what have I done to thee or in what have I molested thee Answer me V. For thy sake I struck Egypt in their first-born and thou hast delivered me to be scourged My people c. I brought thee forth of Egypt having drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea and thou hast delivered me over to the princes of the priests My people c. V. For thee I opened the sea and with a launce thou hast pierced my side My people c. V. I went before thee in a pillar of the cloud and thou hast brought me to the palace of Pilate My people c. V. I nourished thee with Manna in the desart and thou hast struck me with bussets and whips My people c. V. I gave thee wholsom water to drink from the rock and thou hast given me to drink vinegar and gall My people c. V. For thy sake I have struck the kings of the Chananites and thou hast struck my head with a reed My people c. V. I gave thee a royal scepter and thou hast set upon my head a crown of thorns My people c. V. I have raised thee with great strength and thou fastened me on the cross The ANTIPHON The people by their adoring the Cross testifie their horrour of the Jews impiety and ingratitude and considering how Christ triumphed over death by his glorious Resurrection to make us partakers of his glory they render him thanks O Lord we adore thy Cross we praise and glorifie thy Holy Resurrection for by the Wood of the Crofs the whole World is filled with joy PSALM LXVI The Faithful beg of God that he will make them capable to receive the benefit of his Passion and Resurrection GOd have mercy upon us and bless us Illuminate his countenance upon us and have mercy on us Ant. O Lord we adore thy Cross c. After this Crux fidelis and the Hymn Pange lingua are sung HAil Holy Cross to thee we bow To whose blest fruit our lives we ow Our earth bears no such tree Dear are the nails and dear the wood On which our dear Lord shed his blood 'T was Heaven that planted thee Come then my soul and gladly sing The happy combate of our King Which on this Cross he sought Where he the all-victorious Lamb Sin Death and Hell it self o'recame And our full safely wrought V. Hail Holy Cross to thee we bow To whose blest fruit our lives we ow Our earth bears no such tree V. He saw with pity our sad fate When our first-parents rashly ate Of that unhappy tree He saw and markt the deadly wound And soon this sovereign Balsam found To save our souls by thee V. Dear are the nails and dear the wood On which our dear Lord shed his blood 'T was Heaven that planted thee V. This way our cure required as fit That Heaven 's high wisdom should out-wit The dire black art of hell And from the source of all our bane A powerful Antidote should be tane The poison to expell Hail Holy Cross c. V. When the blest time was fully come The Father from his glorious home Sent his Eternal Son He that created Heaven and Earth Of a poor Virgin took his Birth And our frail flesh put on V. Dear are the nails
c. V. The tender Infant as he lies In the cold manger shrinks and cries As little children use While his chast Mother binds his hands His feet his legs in swathing bands Nor does he worse refuse V. Hail Holy Cross c. V. He does not only not refuse But out of pure love freely chuse Death on this bitter Cross Where he the innocent Lamb was slain Eternal Life for us to gain And so repair our Loss V. Dear are the nails c. V. Behold the gall and vinegar The mocking reed and cruel spear Their hate his love display Behold the body cold and wan Whence streams of blood and water ran To wash our stains away V. Hail Holy Cross c. V. Bend gentle tree O quickly bend Thy softned branches and suspend Thy native stubborn heart O give at least this small relief To the God of Heaven but man of grief At least abate his smart V. Dear are the nails c. V. 'T was thou alone wert worthy thought To bear him who our ransom brought And on thee paid it down 'T was he alone and his dear blood That sav'd us from the common flood Which else the world would drown V. Hail Holy Cross c. V. All glory to the sacred Three One individed Deity All honour bliss and praise O may we still adore thy Name Thy Pow'r and Goodness still proclaim Beyond the end of days Amen V. Dear are the nails c. When the adoration of the Cross is near finished the Candles upon the Altar are lighted and the Deacon taking the corporal case carries it to the Altar spreading the corporal upon the Altar after the usual manner and puts it directly against the Purificatory And the Adoration being ended he places the Cross upon the Altar The Sub-deacon takes the Missal from the Epistle and carries it to the Gospel side Then a Procession is made to the place where the blessed Sacrament is reserved The Subdeacon goes first with the Cross between two Acolytes they carrying Candlesticks with lighted Tapers and the Clergy follows in order the Priest last with those that Officiate When they are come unto the place where the blessed Sacrament is the Tapers are lighted and not put out till after the Communion The Priest kneels and prays a while the Deacon in the mean time opens the Tabernacle wherein the blessed Sacrament is Then the Priest rising up puts Incense into the Censors without blessing it then kneeling again he takes one of the Censors and incenseth the Holy Sacrament Then the Deacon taking the Chalice wherein the blessed Sacrament is out of the Tabernacle he puts it into the Priests hands who covers it with the ends of the vail that is upon his shoulders and so they go in order as they came the Priest with the blessed Sacrament under the Canopy the two Acolytes incensing and all the people singing this Hymn A Broad the Regal Banners fly Now shines the Crosses mystery Vpon it life did death endure And yet by death did life procure Who wounded with a direful spear Did purposely to wash us clear From stain of sin pour out a flood Of precious water mixed blood Fully accomplisht are the things David in faithful Meeter sings Where he to nations does attest God on a tree his reign possest O lovely and refulgent tree Adorn'd with purpled majesty Cull'd from a worthy stock to bear Those limbs which sanctified were Blest tree whose happy branches bore The wealth that the World restore The beam that did that body weigh Which rais'd up Hell's expected prey Hail Cross of hopes the most sublime Now in this Morning Passion-time Improve religious souls in grace The sins of criminals efface Blest Trinity Salvation's spring May every soul thy praises sing To those thou grantest conquest by The Cross-Rewards apply Amen When the Priest shall come to the steps of the Altar the Deacon kneeling first shall take the blessed Sacrament and place it upon the Altar Then the Priest standing upright puts Incense into the Censor and incenseth the B. Sacrament upon his knees Then the Vail is taken off his shoulders and he goes up to the Altar where he kneels again and takes the Hoast out of the Chalice putting it upon the Patten which he takes from the Deacon After this he puts the consecrated Hoast upon the Corporal without any words or making the sign of the Cross Then he puts the Patten not under the Corporal as is usual but above to represent Jesus Christ in his Sepulcher If by chance he hath toucht the Hoast he must wash his singers in some Vessel and dry them upon the Purificatory and to do this also he must go down the steps of the Altar The Deacon takes the Chalice and without wiping it he goes to the Epistle corner and puts Wine into it the Sub-deacon also puts in a little Water without blessing it and so presents the Chalice to the Priest without either kissing his hand or the Chalice The Priest placeth the Chalice upon the Corporal without making the sign of the Cross or saying any thing The Deacon covers it with the Pall. The Priest puts Incense into the Censor without a blessing to signifie that the Author of all blessing is dead Then he incenseth the Oblation of Wine and Water to teach us thereby that Bloud and Water issued out of our Saviours side when he was pierced upon the Cross and kneels not when he incenseth the Oblation to signifie to us that this Wine and Water is not to be consecrated LEt this Incense O Lord blest by thee ascend unto thee and let thy mercy descend upon us After the Priest hath incensed the Oblation he incenseth the Altar testifying that as the Sacrifice which is offered is insinitely more Holy than the Sacrifices of the old Law so he ought to beg of God a more perfect preparation and a greater sanctity of Life than that which the Royal Prophet required in this 140 Psalm of being able to correspond by his Prayers to the sanctity of the Sacrifice which was but a Figure of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ LEt my Prayer O Lord be directed as Incense in thy sight the elevation of my hands as Evening Sacrifice Set O Lord a watch to my mouth and a door round about my lips that my heart decline not into the words of malice to make excuses for sins The Priest gives the Censor to the Deacon without being incensed himself as refusing that Honour upon this day wherein Jesus Christ was so affronted with Ignominies and he prays God to inflame his heart as well as all others with a more fervent Charity than the fire in the Censor MAy our Lord kindle in us the fire of his love and the flame of his eternal charity Amen The Priest having delivered the Censor to the Deacon goes down from the Altar on the Epistle side and being near the Credence with his Face to the People he washeth his hands silently
fixed in a triangle which he lights one after another to instruct us that the Light of the Gospel which Jesus Christ hath brought unto us is the work of the blessed Trinity to whom we are to render thanks And therefore advancing towards the Altar he thrice repeats Behold the light of Christ The Faithful answer R. Thanks be to God The Deacon disposing himself to receive Commission from the Priest to give God thanks for the favour done us in freeing us from the Tyranny of the Devil and the Slavery of Sin by the Death and Resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ whereof the Jewish Pasch was a figure asks his blessing Vouchsafe Father to bless The Priest blessing him saith OUr Lord be in thy lips that thou mayest worthily and competently declare the praises of his Pasch In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen Then the Deacon taking the Censor out of the Acolyts hands incenseth the Book thrice in honour of the Holy Trinity which the light of the Gospel revealed unto us as we are taught by Jesus Christ And inviting the Faithful to give God thanks for the Victory which his Son Christ Jesus gained over the Devil and for the favour done unto them by drawing them from darkness and servitude of sin by the light of the Gospel represents unto them that their joy ought to be common to them and to the Angels who rejoyce to see that their number lessened by the fall of Lucifer and his complices is filled up again by humane nature renewed and repaired by Jesus Christ Then the Deacon acknowledging his own unworthiness joyns in Prayer with the Church MAy the angelical troops now rejoyce may the divine mysteries be celebrated with a holy joy may the sound of a comfortable trumpet publish the victory of so great a King and may the whole earth be sensible of the blessing it had by the splendour of the the Eternal King who freed it from that darkness which overspread the whole World May our Mother the Church rejoyce also at the glympse of so resplendent light and may this place resound with the voices of this Congregation And therefore I beseech ye my beloved Brethren here present who enlightened with the admirable splendour of this holy light joyn with me and call upon our Merciful and Almighty God to the end that as he hath been pleased not through my merits to advance me to the number of his Levites so shedding the beams of his light upon me he will give me grace to perfect the praise of this Paschal Candle Through c. Amen The Benediction and Praise of the Paschal Candle is very ancient for this Ceremony is mentioned in Prudentius his Hymn who lived in the fourth Age and St. Gregory Nazianzenus and St. Ambrose Then the Deacon prepares the Faithful to celebrate this Ceremony worthily with him advising them to lift up their hearts to God and to quit all affections to Creatures acknowledging the grace they have received of God by the Light of his Gospel which is represented by the Candle Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit R. Lift up your hearts The Faithful being in the disposition he requires answers We have raised them towards our Lord. Then the Deacon bids the Faithful consider that God so disposed their hearts therefore that they should give publick thanks Let us give thanks to our Lord. The Faithful answer that it is just and reasonable and according they give publick thanks by the Deacon and particular resentments of their hearts by following in their minds the words which the Deacon uses R. It is meet and just The Deacon exhorts the Faithful to give God thanks for that in this Night by the glorious Resurrection of his Son our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Merits of his Death he had freed us from the Tyranny of the Devil and from the Bondage of Sin wherein our first Parent by his sin had involved us and for that by the light of his Gospel he had conducted us to the Kingdom of Heaven which he had promised to his faithful Servant as he delivered the Israelites out of the Captivity of Egypt causing a Pillar of Fire to lead them into the Land of Promise IT is truly meet and just that with all affections of our heart and soul and with the ministry of our voice we glorifie the invisible God Father Almighty and his onely Son our Lord Jesus Christ who hath paid Adam's death for us to his Eternal Father and by shedding his innocent blood hath blotted out the hand-writing of our old sins whereby we are subjected to death For these are the Paschal Feasts wherein the true Lamb is immolated and the gates of the Faithful consecrated by his blood This is that night wherein first thou madest our forefathers the Children of Israel to pass the Red Sea dry-foot This is that night which dissipated the darkness of sins by the light of a pillar of fire This is that night which separating through the whole World those that believe in Jesus Christ from the vices of this age and from the darkness wherein sinners are ingaged restores them to grace and associates them to sanctity This is that night wherein the chains of death being broken Christ ascended Conquerour from Hell For it would not have availed us to have been born unless Christ had been pleased to redeem us O God how admirable is thy bounty towards us how inestimable thy charity who didst deliver up thy Son to redeem thy slave O certain necessary sin of Adam to make us sensible of the excess of God's love towards us since it hath been effaced by the death of Jesus Christ O happy fault that merited to have such and so great a Redeemer O truly happy night which alone deserved'st to observe the time and moment of Christ his rising from the dead This is that night of which it is written in the 178th Psalm The night shall shine as the day and the night is my illumination in my delights therefore the sanctification of this night banisheth all crimes washeth away all offences restores to innocence those that had been lost makes glad the afflicted reconciles hatred and enmities restores peace and union and humbles empires Here the Deacon puts the five grains of blest Incense in form of a Cross into the Candle not yet lighted which signifies the dead Body of our Saviour teaching us how adorable the wounds were which he received on the Cross where he offered up himself a Sacrifice for us to God his Father whereof the Evening Sacrifice was a figure in the Old Law and the Sacrifice of the Altar is a representation of it in the Evangelical Law Then the Deacon lighting the Candle which then becomes a figure of Christs Body risen again acknowledges the advantage we have received by his Resurrection REceive then O Holy Father from us on this happy night the Evening-Sacrifice of
of blessed Spirits pray for us St. John Baptist pray for us All ye Holy Patriarchs pray for us St. Peter pray for us St. Paul pray for us St. Andrew pray for us St. John pray for us All ye Holy Apostles and Evangelists pray for us All ye Holy Disciples of our Lord pray for us St. Stephen pray for us St. Laurence pray for us St. Vincent pray for us All ye Holy Martyrs pray for us St. Sylvester pray for us St. Gregory pray for us St. Augustine pray for us All ye Holy Bishops and Confessours pray for us All ye Holy Doctors pray for us St. Anthony pray for us St. Bennet pray for us St. Dominick pray for us St. Francis pray for us All ye Holy Priests and Levites pray for us All ye Holy Monks and Hermits pray for us St. Mary Magdalene pray for us St. Agnes pray for us St. Cecily pray for us St. Catherine pray for us St. Agatha pray for us St. Anastasia pray for us All ye Holy Virgins and Widows pray for us All ye Men and Women Saints of God make intercession for us Be merciful unto us spare us O Lord. Be merciful unto us graciously hear us O Lord. From all evil O Lord deliver us From all sin O Lord deliver us From everlasting death O Lord deliver us Through the mystery of thy holy Incarnation O Lord deliver us Through thy coming O Lord deliver us Through thy Nativity O Lord deliver us Through thy Baptism and Holy Fasting O Lord deliver us Through thy Cross and Passion O Lord deliver us Through thy Death and Burial O Lord deliver us Through thy Holy Resurrection O Lord deliver us Through thy admirable Ascension O Lord deliver us Through the coming of the Holy Ghost the comforter O Lord deliver us In the Day of Judgment O Lord deliver us We sinners do beseech thee to hear us Here the Priest with his Ministers accompanying him go into the Sacristy to vest themselves for the celebrating of Mass the Litanies in the mean time being continued by the Quire That thou spare us we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe to govern and preserve thy Holy Church we beseech thee to hear us That thou vouchsafe to preserve our Apostolick Prelate and all Ecclesiastical Orders in Holy Religion we beseech thee to hear us That thou vouchsafe to humble the enemies of thy Holy Church we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe to give Peace and true Concord to Christian Kings and Princes we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe to comfort and keep us in thy Holy Service we beseech thee hear us That thou render eternal good things to our benefactors we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe to give and preserve the fruits of the earth we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe to give eternal rest to all Faithful departed we beseech thee hear us That thou vouchsafe graciously to hear us we beseech thee hear us Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world spare us O Lord. Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world hear us O Lord. Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy on us O Lord. Christ hear us Christ graciously hear us The Litanies being ended the Priest with his Attendance come to the foot of the Altar where he makes his Confession then he ascends the Altar and kissing it incenseth it as usually In the mean time Kyrie-Eleison is sung as before pag. 36. And as the Glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ crowned the Mystery of his Incarnation the People testifie their joy and acknowledgments in singing the Canticle which the Angels used when this Divine word became Man Gloria in Excelsis c. as before pag. 167. You are to observe that this days Mass belongs to the following Night for it was the custom formerly to celebrate this Service at Night and the People were wont to watch till Midnight expecting the hour in which our Saviour rose again And likewise that there is no introit said to intimate unto us that as yet Christs Resurrection was not manifested unto Men. Gloria in Excelsis is said to observe unto us the Joy conceived by the Angels the first Witnesses of Christs Resurrection wherefore they begin to ring out the Bells The COLLECT The Priest beseeches God that having made the new Baptized partakers of the Merit of his Resurrection by raising them from the death of sin he will please to preserve them in the Life they have new received Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Let us Pray O God who hast illustrated this Night by the glorious Resurrection of our Lord conserve the Spirit of Adoption given unto those new Children of thy Church that being renewed both in mind and body they may serve thee with a pure heart through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen The Lesson of the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Colossians Chap. 3. The Church instructs Christians to look upon themselves as Persons revived by Jesus Christ and in this quality they ought not to place their hopes and affections upon this World but that Heaven is their Country where they should converse and dwell in Spirit that they raise up themselves to the Right Hand of God where our Redeemer sits They must be as it were dead to the World and not live but to God alone The life of grace works in them what the Root does invisibly in Trees for as the Trees in Winter seem dead their life being only preserved in their Roots hid under ground but at Spring this hidden life makes them wax green again and resume all their beauties So during this life the Faithful are as in a state of death because they apply not themselves to the exterior attentions of this because they renounce the delights thereof the satisfactions of the flesh and all visible things their life is hid with Jesus Christ in God that is they live not but to God alone by the grace of Christ and what they must be appears not as yet till the Spring-time of Eternity shall succeed the Winter of this present Life that is when Jesus Christ shall come to judge all men Their life which was hidden in Jesus Christ as in their Root will make them flourish for all Eternity and all that was corruptible in them will become incorruptible and all that was mortal will put on immortality glory and splendor BRethren if you be risen with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is sitting on the right hand of God Mind the things that are above not the things that are upon the Earth For you are dead and your life is with Christ in God when Christ shall appear your life then you also shall appear with him in Glory The Priest invites the People to praise the Blessed Trinity for the graces poured upon them by the vertue of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by
it by the Faith of the Church which asks it O Lord Jesus Christ who didst say to thy Apostles Peace I leave unto you my Peace I give unto you regard not my sins but rather look upon the Faith of thy Church and grant it that Peace and Union which may be according to thy will who livest and reignest God for ever and ever Amen The Priest having prayed for the Faithful prays for himself to obtain a disposition requisite to receive the Eucharist worthily O Lord Jesus Christ Son of the living God who by thy Fathers Will and by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost by thy death hast given life to the whole World deliver me by this thy Holy Body and Bloud from all my sins and from all evil make me a true observer of thy Commandments and that I be never separated from thee who being God livest and reignest for ever Amen O Lord Jesus Christ let not this participation of thy Body which I though unworthy now presume to receive be to my Judgment and Damnation but through thy Mercy a wholesom Medicine to my Infirmities who being God livest and reignest with God the Father in the Unity of the Holy Ghost for ever and ever Amen After he hath kneeled to adore the Blessed Sacrament taking the Host into his hands and considering that he is to receive his God he puts all his confidence in his Mercy saying I Will take the Bread of Heaven and will call upon the name of our Lord. And representing to himself how acceptable the Centurion's Humility was to the Son of God when he would have honoured him with a Visit in imitation of him he protests himself unworthy of so great a favour and striking his breast repeats the same words thrice LOrd I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof only say the word and my Soul shall be healed Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof only say the word and my Soul shall be healed Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof only say the word and my Soul shall be healed In receiving the Body of our Lord he makes the sign of the Cross with the Hoast calling to his memory that it is the Body which Jesus Christ exposed to death to save us THE Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my Soul to Life Everlasting Amen In taking the Chalice he gives God thanks for the advantages he receives by the Communion of the Bloud of Christ by those words of the 117 and 118 Psalm WHat shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits to me I will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of our Lord. In singing his praises I will call upon our Lord and I shall be safe from mine enemies When he receives the Bloud of our Lord making on himself the sign of the Cross with the Chalice and meditating that it is the Bloud which Jesus Christ would shed to save us he says THe Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my Soul to Life Everlasting Amen Whilst he takes Wine in the Chalice to wash his mouth and fingers that so the least particle of the Sacrament may not remain there and to shew the care he must take to preserve himself in Purity he says this Prayer GRant O Lord that we may receive that with a pure heart which we have taken by our mouths and that of a Temporal Gift it may become an Eternal Remedy unto us In taking the second Absolution he says LEt thy Body O Lord which I have received and thy Bloud which I have drunk cleave unto my bowels and grant that the least spot of sin may not remain in me who have been satiated with thy pure and holy Sacraments who livest and reignest world without end Amen Neither Communion nor Post-Communion is said because the Neophytes did not receive at this Mass But the Priest to give God Thanks for the Benefits we have received by the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ uses that Thanksgiving which the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of our Saviour did for the whole Body of the Church Secondly to testifie that we ought not to be less sensible of the Benefits received from God by the Merits of his Son than the Saints of the Old Testament to whom God had revealed them the Church says the 116 Psalm Thirdly the Church teaches us that in commemorating the Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ we ought to present unto our Saviour the perfumes of our Prayers and Good works in imitation of the Charity and Zeal of those good Women who came to his Sepulcher at Day-break with their Persumes to pay him the Duty of their Piety And therefore the Antiphon is taken out of the 28th Chapter of St. Matthew Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia PSALM CXVI PRaise our Lord all ye Gentiles praise him all ye people Because his mercy is confirmed on us and his truth remains for ever Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning and now and ever and world without end Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia Another ANTIPHON out of the 28th Chapter of St. Matthew IN the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn in the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to the Sepulcher Alleluia The Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary Luke 2. The Church in this Canticle represents us with an Abridgment of the Promises and Mysteries of the Salvation and teaches us that as the Son of God became Man to repair by his Humility what Adam had lost by his Pride he was pleased to chuse the Blessed Virgin to be his Mother for the accomplishing this great work in regard of her Humility MY soul doth magnifie our Lord. And my spirit hath rejoyced in God my saviour Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me and holy is his Name And his mercy from generation unto generations to them that fear him He hath shewed might in his arm he hath dispersed the proud in the conceit of their heart He hath deposed the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble The hungry he hath filled with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away He hath received Israel his child being mindful of his mercy As he spake to our fathers to Abraham and his seed for ever Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning and now and ever world without end ANTIPHON In the end of the Sabbath as before pag. 304. The Incense puts us in mind of the Piety of these Holy Women who carried Perfumes to our Saviours Sepulcher And the Church beseeches God that our Prayers may ascend as this Incense unto him Our Lord be with you R. And
the temple on the right side Praise to God And all who were sprinkled with this water were saved and they shall say Praise to God praise to God The Priest begs of God that the Angel of his great Council our Saviour Jesus Christ who descends from Heaven by the Consecration of these Divine Mysteries will assist all those of his Church with his healing Grace that being purified they may worthily present themselves before his Majesty V. O Lord shew unto us thy mercy Praise be to God R. And give us thy salvation R. O Lord hear my Prayer And let my cry come unto thee V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Let us Pray VOuchsafe O Lord Holy Father Almighty and Everlasting God to hear us and send us from Heaven thy Holy Angel to defend sustain protect visit and guard us all that here inhabit Through Christ c. Amen ON EASTER-DAY At MASS The station in the Church of St. Mary Major At Rome the Station is this day at our Ladies Church to represent unto us that no Creature had so great a share in the Glory of our Saviour's Resurrection as the Blessed Virgin because the Body of this adorable Saviour risen again was formed in her Womb and as by her Faith she merited to be the Mother of our Saviour in his Incarnation so by the same Faith she merited to receive all those advantages due unto her as a Mother in the glorious Resurrection of her Son The INTROIT taken out of the 138th Psalm The Church teaches us that Christs Humanity was not separated from his Divinity neither in his Death nor Resurrection and that nothing happened in the marvellous work of our Redemption but by order of the Divine Providence whose Judgments are incomprehensible 'T was Gods will that his only Son should become Man suffer Death and rise again to the end that having by his death expiated the sins of Men which subjected them to death he gave them hopes of Resurrection by his own and of following him their Head and Leader into Glory whither he went before to establish them there with him I Am risen and yet I am with thee Praise God Thou hast put thy hand upon me Praise God Thy knowledge is wonderful Praise God praise God PSALM CXXXVIII In this Psalm the Church instructs us that there is not any Man so Holy who can represent himself before God at the Resurrection without trembling and dread of his Judgments That Christ was the only Person not apprehensive of them being absolutely assured that he was free from all that could be offensive to the Divine Eye that only knows perfectly all that is in Man LOrd thou hast proved me and hast known me thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up Kyrie eleison c. as before pag. 36. And as our Saviours Glorious Resurrection crowns the Mystery of his Incarnation The Faithful testifying their joy and acknowledgments by singing that Canticle which the Angels used when the Divine Word became Man to the end to praise God for this great work which gave to his Majesty a perfect Adorer and to Men a Sovereign Mediator who reconciles them by his Divine Grace unto him and settles Peace between Heaven and Earth which Sin had broken Gloria in Excelsis Deo c. as before pag. 167. The COLLECT The Faithful beg of God that as Christs Humanity being united to his Divine Person by an Hypostatick Union was never separated from his Divinity so that being united to Jesus Christ as to their Head by the Union of his Grace may never be divided from his Majesty but being freed from Death and Sin conquered by Christ they may follow him as their Guide into the state of Glory whither he is gone before them to establish them there with him Let us Pray O God who this day hast opened to us by thy only begotten Son the entrance to Eternity through his victory over death vouchsafe by thy mercy to grant those Petitions which thy preventing grace inspires Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ who with thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost one God for ever and ever Amen The Lesson out of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians and Fifth Chapter The Church instructs us that we are to dye unto sin that so we may be capable of the benefit of Jesus Christs Resurrection That is to say that as Jesus Christ dyed and by dying destroyed that flesh which in appearance was Criminal and as he extinguished that sin which was not in him but because he would take it upon him to satisfie the Divine Justice so we must put off the Old Man which truly is a sinner and putting on the New destroy sin which is truly ours to live the life of Grace which the life of Glory will follow if we be united as perfectly with Jesus Christ as the condition of our Mortality permits To entertain us in this new life of Grace given us by the Merits of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ This Divine Saviour was pleased by an excess of love to give himself unto us for our Spiritual Nourishment figured by the Paschal Lamb. This Lamb immolated in the Ancient Law was the Jewish Pasch and Jesus immolated on the Cross is our Pasch The Jews were not to eat the Paschal Lamb but with unleavened Bread yet since it was but a figure of Jesus Christ who gives himself in the new Banquet whereunto he calls us far more excellent than their Pasch we ought to purifie our hearts from the old leaven that is from our former sins and instead of Malice and Iniquity we there must lodge Innocence and Truth being obliged to be as new Paste without Leven that is without sin BRethren purge the old leven that you may be a new paste as you are azyms for our Pasch Christ is immolated therefore let us feast not in old leven nor in the leven of malice and wickedness but in the azym of sincerity and truth The GRADUAL taken out of the 117th Psalm The Church representing unto us how Jesus Christ hath by his Death freed us from the Tyranny of the Devil and Servitude of Sin and how by his Resurrection hath given us here a new Life and Glory hereafter expressed her resentments and joy in the same words which the Royal Prophet used in expectation of this day revealed unto him by God according to St. Chrysostome in his Homily upon this day THis is the day which our Lord hath made let us rejoyce and be glad in it V. Confess ye unto the Lord for he is good because his mercy endureth for ever Alleluia Alleluia V. Jesus Christ who was our Pasch hath been immolated The Church by the following Prose tells us that our sins and the Devil being vanquished by Jesus Christ we have cause to sing Songs of Praise with more joy than the Israelites when they had passed
the Red Sea and beheld the Egyptians on all sides stretcht out upon the Sands and their Chariots drowned in the bottom of the Sea The PROSE BRing all ye dear-bought Nations bring Your richest Praises to your King That spotless Lamb who more than due Paid for his Sheep and those Sheep you That Innocent Son who wrought your peace And made his Father's anger cease Life and Death together fought Each to a strange extream were brought Life died but soon revived again And even by death's self has slain Say happy Magdalen O say What didst thou see these by the way I saw the Tomb of my dear Lord I saw himself and him ador'd I saw the Napkin and the Sheet That bound his Head and wrapt his Feet I heard the Angels witness bear Jesus is risen he 's not here Go tell his followers they shall see Thine and their hope in Galilee They Lord with faithful heart and chearful voice We on thy glorious rising day rejoyce O thou whose conquering pow'r o'recame the grave By thy victorious grace us sinners save Amen Alleluia Munda cor meum as before pag. 14. The Sequence of the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark Chap. 16. MUNDA COR MEUM c. as before pag. 14. Wherein the Church relating what happened at our Saviours Sepulcher at his Resurrection teacheth us what we ought to do to prepare our selves for the celebrating worthily this Solemnity and then proposes to us the advantages we reap 1. This Gospel teacheth us that the three Maries went early in the Morning with Perfumes to seck Jesus Christ in his Sepulcher The Example of these Holy Women tell us our obligation of going to seek for Christ in his Sepulcher as soon as we are enlightned with his grace That is in the Sacrament of Penance which is the figure of it there to bury our sins making a stock of Good Works signified by the Perfumes 2. These Holy Women had the happiness to see the Angels to teach us that the Souls which seek Christ with Holy desires and the Odour of Vertues have a particular assistance from the Blessed Spirits 3. The Angel appeared to these Holy Women in white as a token of Innocence and Joy to tell us with what purity and joy we are to solemnize the Resurrection of our Lord. This Joy is common to us with the Angels who rejoyce because the void places of their Hierarchies are replenished and we ought to rejoyce for that by its vertue we are raised in this World from the death of sin to a life of grace and we receive a pledge of happy Immortality whereunto we aspire 4. The Angel appeared sitting on the right hand which signifies that by Christs Resurrection we are called to possess Spiritual Blessings expressed in Holy Scripture by the right hand 5. These Holy Women were surprised with fear at their arrival but afterwards were emboldned by the Angel To teach us that Souls which seek God carefully and are toucht with a Holy fear which is the first gift of the Holy Ghost are confirmed with Celestial consolations 6. The Angel recommended to these Holy Women to publish our Saviours Resurrection namely to St. Peter to shew us the Providence which God hath for true Penitents and the hope he gives them to partake of the Glory of his Sons Resurrection AT that time Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome brought spices that coming they might anoint Jesus And very early the first of the Sabboths they came to the monument the sun being now risen And they said one to another Who shall roul us back the stone from the door of the monument And looking they saw the stone rouled back for it was very great And entring into the monument they saw a young man sitting on the right hand covered with a white robe And they were astonished who said to them Be not dismayed You seek Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him But go tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee there you shall see him as he told you CREDO as before pag. 54 55. The OFFERTORY taken out of the 75th Psalm The Church represents unto us that if the Earth trembled at Christs Resurrection and that all present were astonished at his going forth of his Tomb when he came in Mercy to men how much more cause have we to fear and tremble when we consider the severity of his Justice at his coming to examine us a Judge whose Judgments are so piercing that he sees into the most secret corner of our hearts yea what our selves cannot discover when at the general Resurrection he shall come to Judge the living and the dead in such Majesty and Power that the Heavens and all the Elements will be reduced to a condition of Horror and Terror This fear of Gods Judgment when it is joyned to the hope we have through his Mercy to reap the Fruit of our Saviours Resurrection makes our hopes the more beneficial THe earth trembled and was still when God arose in judgment Alleluia Suscipe Sancte Pater c. till the Secret as before pag. 56. The SECRET The Priest begs of God on the behalf of the Faithful to give them the grace to celebrate worthily the Mysteries of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ so that they may reap its wholsom effects ACcept O Lord we beseech thee the Prayers of thy People with the Oblation of these Hosts that these Paschal Mysteries which we celebrate may be wholesom and by thy assistance availing us to obtain Life Everlasting Through our Lord Jesus Christ c. The Preface till Vere dignum justum est c. as before pag. 60 c. The Priest in the name of the Faithful acknowledges the Obligation we have of giving continual thanks to God for Christs Resurrection whereby to raise us again to Life Everlasting and confessing that of himself he cannot worthily acquit this Duty he joyns with the Angels Thrones and Dominations and the rest of the Celestial Spirits who in Heaven sing incessantly Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus and the Canticle which the Children sung at Christ's Triumphant entry into Jerusalem Benedictus qui venit c. as a testimony of the Spiritual Union between Men and Angels in praising his Divine Majesty and to confess that the Purity of Angels and Innocence of Infants is required to praise God worthily IT is truly meet and just right and wholesom O Lord that at all times we set forth thy praises But more especially in this Night wherein Jesus Christ our Paschal Lamb was immolated who hath taken away the sins of the World who by dying hath destroyed our death and by rising again hath restored life And therefore with Angels and Archangels with the Thrones and Dominations together with the Celestial Host we sing this Hymn of thy Glory without end saying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of Sabbath The
your selves which also in CHRIST JESUS who when he was in the form of God thought it no robbery himself to be equal to God but he exinanited himself taking the form of a servant made into the similitude of men and in shape found as a man R. Thanks be to God HYMN In remembrance of the Victory Christ obtained by his Cross A Broad the Regal Banners fly Now shines the Crosses Mystery Upon it Life did Death endure And yet by Death did Life procure Who wounded with a direful Spear Did purposely to wash us clear From stain of Sin pour out a Flood Of precious Water mixt with Blood Fully accomplish'd are the things David in faithful Meeter sings Where he to Nations do's attest God on a Tree his Reign possest O lovely and refulgent Tree Adorn'd with purple Majesty Cull'd from a worthy Stock to bear Those Limbs which sanctified were Blest Tree whose happy Branches bore The Wealth that did the World restore The Beam that did that Body weigh Which rais'd up Hells expected Prey Hail Cross of Hopes the most sublime Now in this mournful Passion-time Improve Religious Souls in Grace The Sins of Criminals efface Blest Trinity Salvations Spring May ev'ry Soul thy Praises sing To those thou grantest Conquest by The Holy Cross Rewards apply Amen THE SONG OF THE HOLY VIRGIN MARY Luke 1. The Church briefly represents unto us in this Canticle the Promises and Mysteries of our Salvation and shews us that the Son of God became Man to repair by his Humility what Man had lost through his own Pride and that it was his will to chuse the Holy Virgin to be his Mother out of his great Humility to accomplish this grand Work MY Soul doth magnifie our Lord. And my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me and holy is his Name And his mercy from generations unto generations to them that fear him He hath shewed might in his arm he hath dispersed the proud in the conceit of their heart He hath deposed the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble The hungry he hath filled with good things and the rich he hath sent away empty He hath received Israel his child being mindful of his mercy As he spake to our fathers to Abraham and his seed for ever Glory be to the Father c. Ant. For it is written I will strike the Pastor and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed but after I shall be risen again I will go before you into Galilee and there ye shall see me saith our Lord. At Paris the following Anthymn is said ALl the people which descended rejoyced and began to praise God exceedingly for the wonders they had seen saying Blessed is the King that comes in the name of our Lord Peace in heaven and glory in the highest THE PRAYER To beg God's Grace to imitate the Humility and Patience of our Saviour O Almighty Eternal God who hast caused our Saviour to take Flesh and be crucified for Mankind as an Example of Humility to be imitated Grant propitiously that we may partake both of the Instructions of his Patience and the Fellowship of his Resurrection Thro' the same our Lord c. AT COMPLINE The Reader says Vers REverend Father bless me THE BLESSING GRant us Omnipotent Lord a quiet Night and a happy End Resp Amen THE LESSON taken out of the First Epistle of the Apostle St. Peter chap. 5. BRethren be sober and watch because your adversary the Devil as a roaring Lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour Whom resist ye strong in faith But thou O Lord have mercy on us R. Thanks be to God V. Our help is in the name of our Lord. R. Who made Heaven and Earth OUr Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from all evil Amen HAil Mary full of Grace our Lord is with thee Blessed art thou amongst Women and blessed is the Fruit of thy Womb JESUS Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us Sinners now and in the hour of our death Amen I Confess unto Almighty God to Blessed Mary ever Virgin to Blessed Michael the Archangel to Blessed John Baptist to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul to all Saints and to Thee Father That I have sinned exceedingly in Thought Word and Deed by my fault by my fault by my most grievous fault Therefore I beseech the Blessed Mary ever Virgin Blessed Michael the Archangel Blessed John Baptist the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul all Saints and Thee O Father to pray for me to our Lord God Almighty God have mercy on us and all our Sins being forgiven bring us unto everlasting Life R. Amen The Almighty and merciful Lord give unto us Pardon Absolution and Remission of all our Sins R. Amen Convert us O God our Saviour R. And avert thine Anger from us V. Incline unto my aid O God R. O Lord make haste to help me Glory be to the Father c. Ant. Have mercy on me PSALM 4. This Psalm shews us That 't is impossible to raise up our Thoughts to the Love of the true Goods whilst our Hearts are overcharged with the Cares of Worldly Affairs but that once being purified with the Grace of God we then in the secret of our Souls begin to contemn our selves and being touched with a true Compunction of Heart we offer to his Majesty a Sacrifice all our past Life with an intention by his assistance entirely to change it And from thence-forth our Lord begins to make us rellish his Sweets and Delights and to heap Joys upon us Then we find in that Sovereign Good another Grain another Wine and another Oyl than what here below so as we neither envy the Prosperity of the Wicked nor fear their Persecutions having placed all our Confidence in God WHen I invocated the God of my justice heard me in tribulation thou hast enlarged to me Have mercy on me and hear my prayer Ye sons of men how long are you of heavy heart why love you vanity and seek lying And know ye that our Lord hath made his Holy One marveilous our Lord will hear me when I shall cry to him Be ye angry and sin not the things that you say in your hearts in your chambers be ye sorry for Sacrifice ye the sacrifice of justice and hope in our Lord Many say Who sheweth us good things The light of thy countenance O Lord is signed upon us thou hast given gladness in my heart By the fruit of their corn and wine and oyl they are multiplied In peace in the self same I will
Vouchsafe O Lord to keep us R. This night without Sin V. Have mercy on us Lord. R. Have mercy on us V. Let thy mercy O Lord come on us R. Even as we have trusted in thee V. O Lord hear my Prayer R. And let my Cry come unto thee V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy Spirit Let us Pray VIsit we beseech thee O Lord this Habitation and repel far from it all Snares of the Enemy Let thy holy Angels dwell therein to preserve us in peace and thy Blessing be upon us for ever through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son who with thee liveth and Reigneth in the Unity of the Holy Ghost One God for ever and ever Amen V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy Spirit V. Let us bless our Lord. R. Thanks be to God THE BLESSING V. The Almighty and Merciful Lord the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost bless and keep us R. Amen THE ANTHYMN OF THE HOLY VIRGIN HAil Queen advanc'd to heavenly Reign Hail Lady of th' Angelick Train Hail Root hail Gate that did disclose The Light which to the World arose Virgin rejoyce whose Form divine All others Beauty do's out-shine Be ever bless'd thrice-beauteous Maid By thee let Christ be for us pray'd V. Vouchsafe that I praise thee O sacred Virgin R. Give me force against my Enemies Let us Pray GRant O merciful God defence unto our Frailty that we who make Commemoration of the Holy Mother of God may by the help of her Intercession arise from our Iniquities Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. R. Amen V. Let the Divine Help always remain with us R. Amen THE NIGHT-OFFICE ON WEDNESDAY IN Holy-Week FOR THVRSDAY at MATTINS ON this Day the Church represents unto us That Jesus Christ supped with his Apostles washed their Feet prayed in the Olive-Garden and that he was betrayed by Judas into the hands of the Jews These three following Days after having said Pater noster Ave Maria and Credo at Mattins and Prime without farther Ceremony they begin Mattins and Vespers with an Anthymn of the First Psalm and every Anthymn is repeated as on double Feasts Domine labia mea c. and Deus in Adjutorium are omitted to signifie that Jesus Christ was then abandoned by his Father to Torments and Death The Invitatory is likewise omitted Neither the Hymn nor Gloria Patri are said to shew us that the Honor due to the Blessed Trinity was violated by the excessive Wickedness and Infidelity of the Jews Fifteen Wax Tapers are lighted because there are recited two Canticles and thirteen Psalms in the Mattins and Laudes which are all sung under one and the same Anthymn Whereby are represented unto us the Light of the Faith which the Prophets in the Old Testament foretold unto the People And a Taper is extinguished at the end of each Psalm to declare that the Light of that Faith whereof the Prophets spoke unto the Jews was in them extinguished after they had crucified the Saviour of the World And at the end of the Canticle of Zachary the Father of St. John Baptist they put not out that Taper which represents Jesus Christ whom St. John Baptist declared to be the true Light of the World to shew that tho' Jesus Christ died according to his Humanity yet that he was always living according to his Divinity They also hide that Taper to signifie that the Divinity of Jesus Christ was hid under the Veil of his Humanity It likewise represents Jesus Christ in his Sepulcher Afterwards they shew the lighted Taper to represent his Resurrection AT THE FIRST NOCTVRN PSALM 68. That which the Royal Prophet foretold in this Psalm of the Mystery of the Passion of Jesus Christ the Church proposes unto us according to the Explication left us by the Apostles as well in the Book of their Acts and in their Epistles as in the Book of Gospels First She represents us with the Sufferings and Death of Jesus Christ which the Prophet compares to an overflowing of the Waters and to a Tempest and to a Wreck Secondly She presents us with the Prayer which our Saviour made to God his Father at the access of his Grief when in the condition of a Slave which our Infirmities occasion'd being in appearance forsaken of God his Father since in his Sufferings he denied him that which he desired through a propension of Humane Nature wherewith he was clothed drawing from the bottom of his Heart these Words full of Love and Piety My Father if it be possible let the Chalice of my Sufferances pass without my drinking it however thy will be done not mine That which he earnestly desired 't is that made his Innocency appear and that he voluntarily suffered those Pains for the Sins of Men and not for his own having never committed or been able to commit the least Sin And though his Passion seems ridiculous and is an Object of Scandal and Abomination in the judgment of the Jews and Gentiles yet the Faithful are not thereat troubled Thirdly The Church shews us that in this Psalm the Prophet foretells how our Saviour was to be betrayed by one of his Disciples and abandoned by his others and how many Outrages and Contempts the Jews would cast upon him Fourthly In this Psalm is declared the Zeal Jesus Christ had for the Honor of his Father his Resignation to his Father's Will his Submission to his Conduct and his Contempt of his own proper Interest For so the Apostle St. Paul in the fifteenth Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans explicates one part of this Psalm Fifthly According to St. Luke in the first Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles and of St. Paul in the second Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans in this Psalm is described the Punishment which was prepared for the Traytor Judas and the other Persecutors of Jesus Christ wherewith this adorable Saviour threatens them not through any Hate or Revenge but through the Zeal of God's Justice considering the Reprobation of those Wretches in the Decrees of his Providence Sixthly We are instructed in this Psalm That Jesus Christ having by his Death repaired the Honor of God his Father he was also to rise again and build his Church which through Sin was lost and establish his Faithful in the possession of the Heavenly Inheritance signified by Jerusalem and lost by Sin Establishing on Earth a more agreeable Sacrifice than that of Calves which was offer'd him in the Old Law to wit the Sacrifice of his own Body and Blood Ant. The zeal of thy house hath eaten me and the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me SAve me O God because waters are entred into my Soul I stick fast in the mire of the depth and there is no sure standing I am come into the depth of the sea and a tempest hath overwhelmed me I have laboured crying my jaws are made hoarse my eyes have failed whilst I hope
and hath taught me he hath spread a net for my feet he hath turned me backward he hath made me desolate all the day consumed with sorrow NUN The yoke of mine iniquities hath watched they are folded together in his hand and put upon my neck my strength is weakned our Lord hath given me into the hand from which I cannot rise Jerusalem Jerusalem Convert unto the Lord thy God If the Jews deservedly suffered all those Miserie 's foretold by the Prophet Jeremy what Calamities do they not merit for putting to death the Saviour of the World who suffered Death only because he was charged with the Sins of Men and because he would satisfie for us the Rigor of the Justice of God his Father R. Behold we have seen him and there was no sightliness and we were desirous of him he hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried But he was wounded for our iniquities and with the weight of his stripe we are healed He surely hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried with the weight of whose stripe we are healed V. Behold we have seen him and there was no sightliness and we were desirous of him he hath born our infirmities and our sorrows he hath carried But he was wounded for our iniquities and with the weight of his stripe we are healed THE SECOND NOCTVRN PSALM 71. The Church represents us with the Reign of Solomon as being a Figure of the Reign of Jesus Christ shewing us with what Zeal King David desired the Reign of this Divine Saviour whom he acknowledged to be his Lord and King according to his Divinity as he ought to be his Son according to his Humanity Ant. Our Lord shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper O God give thy judgment to the king and thy justice to the son of the king To judge thy people in justice and thy poor in judgment Let the mountains receive peace for the people and the little hills justice He shall judge the poor of the people and shall save the children of the poor and he shall humble the calumniator And he shall continue with the sun and before the moon in generation and generation He shall descend as rain upon a fleece and as drops distilling upon the earth There shall rise in his days justice and abundance of peace until the moon be taken away And he shall rule from sea unto sea and from the river even to the ends of the round world Before him shall the Ethiopians fall down and his enemies shall lick the earth The kings of Tharsis and the Islands shall offer presents the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts And all kings of the earth shall adore him all nations shall serve him Because he shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper He shall spare the poor and needy and he shall save the souls of the poor From usuries and iniquities he shall redeem their souls and their name shall be honorable before him And he shall live and there shall be given him of the gold of Arabia and they shall adore it always all the day they shall bless him And there shall be a firmament in the earth in the tops of the mountains the fruit thereof shall be extolled far above Libanus and they shall flourish of the city as the grass of the earth Be his name blessed for ever before the sun his name is permanent And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him all nations shall magnifie him Blessed be our Lord the God of Israel who doth only merveilous things And blessed be the name of his Majesty for ever and all the earth shall be filled with his Majesty Be it Be it Ant. Our Lord shall deliver the poor from the mighty and the poor which had no helper PSALM 72. The Church represents unto us by the example of the Sufferances of Jesus Christ the Grace of the New Testament which this adorable Saviour came to declare unto the World appertains to Life everlasting and not this transitory one which passes with the Time wherein God bestows even on the Wicked worldly Felicities to the end that the Rich and the Good should not propose to themselves a Reward of Happiness in this World for such Services they render God She likewise shews that this Truth was declared even to the Saints of the Old Testament She therefore proposes unto us the 72. Psalm wherein the Royal Prophet mentions a Man who repents himself for having served God out of Self-interest not having a just Heart but ever inclined it self to temporal Rewards seeing that the Wicked abounded in the Goods of the Earth and who was much troubled almost to despair thinking God took no care of Human Affairs But these criminal Thoughts being laid aside by the Authority of the Saints he is forced to penetrate into so profound a Secret as with all his Endeavors and Studies he can never discover until he is entred the Sanctuary of God and known his last End that is to say until he hath received the Holy Ghost who instructs him to desire better things and shews him what Pains the Wicked will suffer after they have enjoyed the fleeting and transitory Pleasures of this World Ant. The wicked have thought and have spoken wickedness they have spoken iniquity on high HOw good is God to Israel to them that are of a right heart But my feet were almost moved my steps almost slipped Because I have had zeal upon the wicked seeing the peace of sinners Because there is no respect to their death and stability in their plague In the labors of men they are not and with men they shall not be scourged Therefore hath pride held them they are covered with their iniquity and impiety Their iniquity hath proceeded as it were of far they have passed into the affection of the heart They have thought and have spoken wickedness they have spoken iniquity on high They have set their mouth unto heaven and their tongue hath passed in the earth Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them And they have said How doth God know and is there knowledge in the Highest Lo the sinners themselves and they that abound in the world have obtained riches And I said Then have I justified my heart without cause and have washed my hands amongst innocents And have been scourged all the day and my chastisings in the mornings If I said I shall speak this behold I reproved the nation of thy children I thought to know this thing it is labor before me Until I may enter into the sanctuary of God and may understand concerning their latter end But yet for guiles thou hast put it to them thou hast cast them down whilst they were elevated How are they brought into desolation they have failed suddenly they have perished for their iniquity
of the Devil and his bad Angels Conversion we may despair of for Holy Writ shews us that they are destined to eternal Torments and Flames and against whom we sustain an invisible Conflict to which the Apostle encourageth us and arms us saying Our Combate is not against Flesh and Blood that is against Men whom we see but against the Princes Potentates and Rulers of the Darkness of this World lest when he had said of the World we should think that the Devils were the Rulers of Heaven and Earth He says not simply against the Princes and Powers of this World but adds which reign in Darkness By the World he means those that love the World by the World he means the Impious and Wicked He means by the World that World of which the Gospel speaks The World knew him not The Church shews us what Testimonies of Friendship Christ gave unto Judas even whilst he was compleating the Treason against him R. Judas a most wicked Merchant kissed our Lord and he as an innocent Lamb refused not the Kiss to Judas He delivered Christ unto the Jews for a few Pence V. It had been better he had never been born for some Pence he delivered Christ unto the Jews VI. LESSON The Church represents unto us the Good which Christ drew from the Wickedness and Cruelty of the Jews raising his Throne of Mercy on the Instruments of his Death FOr I have seen Iniquity and Strife in the City Behold the Glory of his Cross That Cross which was the Object of his Enemies Scorn is now placed on the Foreheads of Kings His Power appeared by the Effects for he governed the World not with Steel but Wood. The Wood of the Cross which seemed to his Enemies only to be worthy of their Scorn when before it they wagg'd their Heads saying If he be the Son of God let him come down from the Cross And he stretch'd forth his Hands to an unbelieving and factious People If therefore he be just that lives by Faith he that wants it is wicked Wherefore by Iniquity is understood Infidelity Our Lord therefore seeing the Iniquity and Disobedience which then reigned in the City stretched forth his Hands to the faithless and mutinous People and expecting them he said Father forgive them for they know not what they do The Church having here shewed us with what an excess of Love Jesus Christ prayed unto God his Father for the Conversion and Salvation of his Persecutors She likewise declares his Charity and Goodness by endeavouring to withdraw Judas from his Wickedness by shewing him his Goodness in admitting him to sit at his Table and permitting him to put his Hand with him into the Dish although he knew of his Design to betray him and represented unto him the Unhappiness he was ready to fall into Whereby 't is evident Judas cannot attribute his Damnation to any thing but his own Malice and Infidelity R. One of my Disciples shall this day betray me but wo unto him by whom I shall be betrayed It were better for him he had not been born V. He that dippeth his hand with me in the Dish he shall deliver me up into the hands of sinners It were better for him he had not been born R. One of my Disciples c. THIRD NOCTVRN PSALM 74. The Church represents unto us That with a firm Belief and true Acknowledgment we are to expect the Effects of Gods Promises in the Calamities and Traverses of this Life which Christ hath confirmed unto us not only by the sacred Oracle of his Blessed Mouth but also by the holy Mystery of his bitter Passion and glorious Resurrection Shewing us by his bitter Passion the Hardships we are to undergo in this Life and by his glorious Resurrection what we are to hope for in the next The Church also tells the Wicked how much they are to dread and apprehend the severe Judgment of God who leaves no Ill unpunish'd and prepares eternal Flames for such as die in their Iniquities which the Royal Prophet compares to a Chalice of Wine mixt with Bitterness She also exhorts us to repent and acknowledge that even the temporal Goods which they enjoy in this World are only from the Bounty of God and not the Effects of Fortune or their Industry and that they are only given to Man as conducing to his Salvation Ant. I said to the wicked Speak not iniquity against God WE will confess to thee G God we will confess and will invocate thy name We will tell thy marveilous works when I shall take a time I will judge justices The earth is melted and all that dwell in it I have confirmed the pillars thereof I said to the wicked Do not wickedly and to them that offend Exalt not the horn Exalt not your horn on high speak not iniquity against God For neither from the east nor from the west nor from the desert mountains because God is judge This man he humbleth and him he exalteth because there is a cup in the hand of our Lord of mere wine full of mixture And he hath poured it out of this into that but yet the dregs thereof are not emptied all the sinners of the earth shall drink But I will shew forth for ever I will sing to the God of Jacob. And I will break all the horns of sinners and the horns of the just shall be exalted Ant. I said to the wicked Speak not iniquity against God PSALM 75. The Church admonisheth the Faithful who are represented by the People of Israel to thank God for calling them to the Knowledge and Profession of his Holy Name by his Son our Lord Jesus Christ who reconciled us to his Father uniting us by the Tie of Charity that we might not be at variance with any but in peace with every one and who enlightens us from his Throne on high with the Light of his Grace to make us contemn the transitory and perishable Goods of this World which the Wicked enjoy as it were only in a Dream and which vanish at the Hour of Death The Church represents this Divine Saviour triumphing over the Wicked and proposes unto us the Rigor of his Justice at his last coming when he shall judge the Living and the Dead with so great a Majesty and such irresistible Power that even all the Heavens and Elements shall quake and tremble to the end that the Terror of the Threats of this Last Judgment might not only stop and prevent the Boldness and Rashness of Sinners and secure the Innocency of the Just even in the midst of the Wicked but also that the Wicked fearing the Torments wherewith God in his Justice punishes Offences might at the same time when they dread Chastisement be restrained from sinning and by an internal Motion be excited to invoke the Goodness of God which changes their Spirit and by an admirable Effect of his Grace cures the Corruption and Malice of their Will and transports them not only
will deliver him RESP. The Church shews us That the Miracles done at the Death of our Lord JESUS CHRIST and which the Prophets foretold of him were most evident Testimonies to the Jews to have acknowledg'd him to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World who had power to render up his Soul to his Eternal Father and to take it again so as none could bereave him of her 'T is therefore that being nailed on the Cross he pronounced the Twenty first Psalm which describes his Passion and gives the Reason of it to wit That by his Sufferings and Death he might satisfie God's Justice for the Sins of Mankind wherewith he was charged and that by his Example he might instruct us that we are not to become Christians only to enjoy this temporal Life but that the Name Christian must make us Pretenders to Life everlasting R. Whilst the Jews crucified Jesus darkness covered the earth and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice My God why hast thou forsaken me And bowing his head gave up the ghost V. And Jesus crying with a loud voice said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit And bowing down his head c. VI. LESSON In this Lesson the Church shews us how the Jews put JESUS CHRIST to death THey have sharpned their Tongues as a Sword Let not the Jews say We have not killed Christ for certainly 't was therefore they delivered him into the Hands of Pilate the Judge that so they might seem guiltless of his Death For when Pilate said unto them Do ye your selves put him to death they answered 'T is not lawful for us to kill any one Thus they would retort on the Judge the Injustice of their own Crime But how could they deceive God who is the true Judge 'T is certain that what Pilate did made him partake of their Guilt but in comparison of the Jews he is far more innocent for he did what he could to deliver him out of their Hands And therefore having first caused him to be scourged he shewed him unto them not that he scourged our Lord out of design to persecute him but thereby a little to appease their Rage that by their beholding him so cruelly whipped they might be satisfied and desist from demanding his Death And this he did But when they still persisted ye all know he washed his Hands before them and said That he had nothing to do with it and was cleansed from the guilt of his Death yet he put him to death and if he be guilty for having condemn'd him against his will are they innocent who forced him to it By no means Because Pilate pronounced Sentence against him and commanded him to be crucified he is guilty of his Death And ye O Jews have put him to death and how have ye put him to death With the Sword of your Tongues For ye have sharpned your Tongues and soaked them in his Blood when ye exclaimed against him saying Crucifie Crucifie RESP. The Church shews unto us That the Prophet Jeremy in his twelfth Chapter did foretel this Insolence of the Jews against the Saviour of the World who was willing to suffer this Outrage that thereby he might obey the Decree of God's Providence R. I have delivered my beloved Soul into the Hands of the Wicked and my Inheritance became unto me as a Lion in the Wood The Enemy cried out against me saying Let us assemble and make haste to devour him They have set me in the remotest of the Wilderness and all the earth wailed over me because he was not found that would acknowledge me or do me good V. Men without mercy have risen up against me and they have not spared my Soul Because he was not found that would acknowledge me or do me good R. I have delivered my beloved Soul c. THIRD NOCTVRN PSALM 58. or 59. In the Person of David the Church represents unto us CHRIST persecuted by the Jews and by them put to death yet that he begged from his Father that he would not suffer these wicked People who like mad Dogs were enraged against him to triumph in his Death but that by a quick Resurrection he would deliver him from their Hands shewing thereby what we are to contemn in the Course of this Life and what to hope for in all Eternity and making us acknowledge that all our Merits and all the Good we do is the pure effect of God's Mercy towards us and that when he crowns our Deserts he in reality crowns but his own Gifts 2. The Church shews us the Chastisements God inflicted on the Persecutors of his Son by banishing them out of their own Country depriving them of all Honors Power and Authority and by dispersing them over the whole World like Slaves Vagabonds and the Out-cast of all People Ant. From them that rise up against me defend me O Lord because they have taken my soul DEliver me from mine enemies O my God and from them that rise up against me defend me Deliver me from them that work iniquity and from bloody men save me Because loe they have taken my soul the strong have fallen violently upon me Neither is it mine iniquity nor my sin O Lord without inquity have I run and gone directly Rise up to meet me and see and thou O Lord the God of powers God of Israel attend to visit all nations have no mercy on all that work iniquity They will return at evening and they shall suffer famin as dogs and shall compass the city Behold they will speak in their mouth and a sword in their lips because who hath heard And thou O Lord wilt scorn them thou wilt bring to naught all nations I will keep my strength to thee because thou art my receiver my God thy mercy shall prevent God will shew unto me concerning mine enemies kill them not lest sometimes my peoples forget Disperse them in thy strength and depose them my protector O Lord. The sin of their mouth the word of their lips and let them be taken in their pride And for cursing and lying they shall be talked of in consummation in wrath of consummation and they shall not be And they shall know that God will rule over Jacob and over the ends of the earth They shall be turned at evening and shall suffer famine as dogs and shall compass the city They shall be dispersed to eat and if they be not filled they will murmur also But I will sing thy strength and will exalt thy mercy in the morning Because thou art become my receiver and my refuge in the day of my tribulation My helper I will sing to thee because thou art God my receiver my God my mercy Ant. From them that rise up against me defend me O Lord because they have taken my soul PSALM 87. This Psalm is a Prophecy of the Passion Burial and Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST wherein the Royal Prophet represents unto us the
Sufferings this Divine Saviour was to undergo to satisfie the Rigor of the Justice of his Father and that for the Sins of Man wherewith he had loaded himself Then having described his Burial he proposes to us the Prayer he was to offer to his Eternal Father to demand of him his Resurrection not only for himself for being equal with his Father he had no need of Prayers that he might not be left in the Power of Death who alone was free among the Dead and had power to leave his Soul and take her again but for us that he might make us Partners with him of his New Life and give us an Example of perfect Patience and Submission to the Will of God Then he shews us the Advantage we receive by the Resurrection of our Saviour making us acknowledge that our Faith had been fruitless if it had remained in the Sepulcher for then our Sins had not been taken away Death is the Effect of Sin so that if our Saviour had not conquered Death it might have been said he had not triumphed over Sin Ant. Thou hast made my familiars far from me I was delivered and came not forth O Lord the God of my salvation in the day have I cried and in the night before thee Let my prayer enter in thy sight incline thine ear to my petition Because my soul is replenished with evils and my life hath approached to hell I am accounted with them that descend into the lake I am become as a man without help free among the dead As the wounded sleeping in the sepulchers of whom thou art mindful no more and they are cast off from thy hand They have put me in the lower lake in the dark places and in the shadow of death Thy fury is confirmed upon me and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me Thou hast made my familiars far from me they have put me abomination to themselves I was delivered and came not forth mine eyes languished for poverty I cried to thee O Lord all the day I stretched out my hands to thee Wilt thou do merveils to the dead or shall physicians raise to life and they confess to thee Shall any in the sepulcher declare thy mercy and thy truth in perdition Shall thy merveilous works be known in darkness and thy justice in the land of oblivion And I O Lord have cried to thee and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Why dost thou O Lord reject my prayer turnest away thy face from me I am poor and in labors from my youth and being exalted humbled and troubled Thy wraths have passed upon me and thy terrors have troubled me They have compassed me as water all the day they compassed me together Thou hast made friend and neighbor far from me and my familiars because of misery Ant. Thou hast made my familiars far from me I was delivered and came not forth PSALM 93. In this Psalm we are taught neither to repine at the Prosperity of the Bad nor to be troubled at the Afflictions of the Just for God being Omnipotent and Sovereignly Good being the Creator and chief Master of all things would suffer no Ill in his Works were he not sufficiently Powerful and Good to extract some Good even from Evil it self He has thought fit that 't is better to draw Good from Bad than not to permit Evil. Wherefore since we can no more doubt of his Power than Bounty we must patiently support all Ills that befal us and believe that the Will of God is more beneficial for us than our own Will or Desires can be Let us then consider the Assistance he gives his faithful Servants and the Rewards he promises unto them and let us regard the Torments he prepares for the Wicked Ant. They will hunt after the soul of the just and will condemn innocent blood OUr Lord God of revenges the God of revenges hath done freely Be exalted thou that judgest the earth render retribution to the proud How long shall sinners O Lord how long shall sinners glory Shall they utter and speak iniquity shall all they speak that work injustice Thy people O Lord they have humbled and thine inheritance they have vexed The widow and the stranger they have slain and the pupils they have killed And they have said The Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob understand Understand ye foolish in the people and ye fools be wise at sometime He that planted the ear shall he not hear or he that made the eye doth he not consider He that chastiseth nations shall he not rebuke he that teacheth man knowledge Our Lord knoweth the cogitations of men that they be vain Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct O Lord and shalt teach out of thy law That thou mayst give him quietness from the evil days till a pit be digged for the sinner Because our Lord will not reject his people and his inheritance he will not forsake Until justice be turned into judgment and they who are near it are all that are right of heart Who shall rise for me against the malignant or who shall stand with me against them that work iniquity But that our Lord hath holpen me within very little my soul had dwelt in hell If I said My foot is moved thy mercy O Lord did help me According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart thy consolations have made my soul joyful Doth the seat of iniquity cleave to thee which makest labor in precept They will hunt after the soul of the just and will condemn innocent blood And our Lord became my refuge and my God the help of my hope And he will repay them their iniquity and in their malice he will destroy them the Lord our God will destroy them Ant. They will hunt after the soul of the just and will condemn innocent blood VERSICLE taken out of Psalm 108. The Church having presented unto us in the precedent Psalm she Comfort we receive in our Sufferings by considering the Power and Goodness of God who created us preserves and assists us with his holy Protection She admonisheth us in these following Versicles to consider the great Love God had for us since he delivered his only Son to death for our Salvation So that by the Example of his Son our Saviour we might be more powerfully fortified in the Persecutions and Miseries of this Life V. They have spoken against me with deceitful tongue R. And with words of hatred they have compassed me and they have impugned me without cause VII LESSON Out of the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews chap. 4. The Church teacheth us That the Reason why the Son of God would become Man and bear all our Infirmities even to die for us was that thereby he might open the Heavens to us and so enable us to enter into the Repose of eternal Tranquillity And to enjoy so great a Benefit we must live conformably
putting to death the Redeemer of the World She also admonisheth them to acknowledge their Sins and to beg Gods pardon for them Jerusalem arise and put off thy garments of mirth cover thy self with ashes and haircloth For in thee is slain the Saviour of Israel V. Draw forth tears as a torrent day and night and let not the apple of thine eye besilent Because in thee was slain the Saviour of Israel LESSON III. Taken out of the Fifth Chapter The beginning of the Prayer of the Prophet JEREMY The Prophet prays unto God to have mercy on his People REmember O Lord what is fallen to us behold and regard our reproach Our inheritance is turned to aliens our houses to strangers We are made pupils without father our mothers are as it were widows Our water we have drunk for money our wood we have bought for a price We were led by our necks no rest was given to the weary We have given our hand to Egypt and to the Assyrians that we might be filled with bread Our fathers have sinned and they are not and we have born their iniquities Servants have ruled over us there was none that would redeem us out of their hand In peril of our lives did we fetch us bread at the face of the sword in the desert Our skin was burnt as an oven by reason of the tempests of famin They humbled the women in Sion and the Virgins in the cities of Juda. Jerusalem Jerusalem Convert unto the Lord thy God VERSICLE taken out of the First Chapter of the Prophet Joel The Church having represented unto us the Prayer which the Prophet Jeremy offered unto God to endeavor to avert those Miseries which threatned the City of Jerusalem she likewise shews us in the following Versicles the admonition God gave unto the Jews to do Penance by the Month of the Prophet Joel that they might avoid those Miserie 's their Sins would draw upon them Mourn as a virgin my people girded with sackcloth upon the husband of her youth Because the day of our Lord is at hand a very great and bitter day V. Gird your selves and mourn ye priests howl ye ministers of the altar lie ye in sackcloth Because the great day of our Lord is at hand Mourn as a virgin c. SECOND NOCTVRN PSALM 23. The Church yearly commemorating on this Day the Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST represents unto us That this Sovereign Lord and Creator of all things was that amiable Saviour who out of his Love to us voluntarily suffered Death and Burial that by his Death having delivered us from the Tyranny of the Devil and Slavery of Sin might also by his Resurrection and Ascension open Heaven unto those that lead a Vertuous Humble Innocent and Chast Life Ant. Be ye lifted up O eternal gates and the king of glory shall enter in THe earth is our Lords and the fulnest thereof the round world and all that dwell therein Because he hath founded it upon the seas and upon the rivers hath prepared it Who shall ascend into the mount of our Lord or who shall stand in his holy place The innocent of hands and of clean heart that hath not taken his soul in vain nor sworn to his neighbor in guile He shall receive blessing of our Lord and mercy of God his Saviour This is the generation of them that seek him of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob. Lift up your gates ye princes and be ye lifted up O eternal gates and the king of glory shall enter in Who is this king of glory Our Lord strong and mighty our Lord mighty in battel Lift up your gates ye princes and be ye lifted up O eternal gates and the king of glory shall enter in Who is this king of glory The Lord of powers he is the king of glory Ant. Be ye lifted up O eternal gates and the king of glory shall enter in PSALM 26. The Church declares unto us That we should not fear the Accidents and Miseries of this Life since God is our Safety and Salvation and what help are we nor to expect from him whose only Son was Sacrificed for us And what should we fear since by his Death he has overcome all things that might hurt us and since he has ascended into Heaven there to give us refuge and which now is open to us in all our Miseries and Afflictions since from his Throne of Glory he pours forth upon us his Graces to purifie us conduct us and make us surmount all difficulties and obstacles to our Salvation and to convert our Patience to the shame and confusion of our Enenlies Therefore let us be careful not to render our selves unworthy his Protection and take heed lest the fear of trouble make us commit unlawful Actions We must also most strictly observe his Commandments and wholly apply our selves to his service in hopes of attaining to that Eternal Felicity he has promised us Ant. I believe to see the good things of our Lord in the land of the living OUr Lord is my illumination and my salvation whom shall I fear Our Lord is the protector of my life of whom shall I he afraid Whilst the shameful approach upon me to eat my flesh Mine enemies that trouble me themselves are weakned and are fallen If camps stand together against me my heart shall not fear If battel rise up against me in this will I hope One thing I have asked of our Lord this will I seek for that I may dwell in the house of our Lord all the days of my life That I may see the pleasantness of our Lord and visit his temple Because he hath hid me in his tabernacle in the day of evils he hath protected me in the secret of his tabernacle In a rock he hath exalted me and now he hath exalted my head over mine enemies I have gone round about and have immolated in his tabernacle an host of jubilation I will sing and say a psalm to our Lord. Hear O Lord my voice wherewith I have cried to thee have mercy on me and hear me My heart hath said to thee my face hath sought thee out thy face O Lord I will seek Turn not away thy face from me decline not in wrath from thy servant Be thou my helper forsake me not neither despise me O God my Saviour Because my father and my mother have forsaken me but our Lord hath taken me Give me a law O Lord in thy way and direct me in the right path because of mine enemies Deliver me not into the souls of them that trouble me because unjust witnesses have risen up against me and iniquity hath lied to it self I believe to see the good things of our Lord in the land of the living Expect our Lord do manfully and let thy heart take courage and expect thou our Lord. Ant. I believe to see the good things of our Lord in the land of the living PSALM 29. In this
RESP. By the following Versicles taken out of the Fifty seventh and Fifty third Chapter of the Prophet Isay the Church represents unto us That if the Jews were unhappy in having so ill treated and not acknowledged the Saviour of the World we who believe in him are not less faulty and unhappy unless we consider what this Divine Saviour suffered for us and thence draw some benefit to our selves Behold how the Just perisheth and there is none that considereth in his heart and men of mercy are gathered away because there is none that understandeth for at the face of malice is the Just gathered away V. As a Lamb before his shearer he shall be dumb and shall not open his mouth From distress and from judgment he was taken up And his memory shall be in peace Behold how the just perisheth c. THIRD NOCTVRN PSALM 53. This Day the Church commermorating CHRIST in his Sepulcher makes the words in the Fifty third Psalm to express the Prayer this Divine Saviour made unto his Father as being our Chief and Mediator thereby begging of him a quick Resurrection to triumph over Death and destroy the Empire of Sin Ant. God helpeth me and our Lord is the receiver of my soul O God save me in thy name and in thy strength judge me O God hear my prayers with thine ears receive the words of my mouth Because strangers have risen up against me and the strong have sought my soul and they have not set God before their eyes For behold God helpeth me and our Lord is the receiver of my soul Turn away the evils to mine enemies and in thy truth destroy them I will voluntarily sacrifice to thee and will confess to thy name O Lord because it is good Because thou hast delivered me out of all tribulation and mine eye hath looked down upon mine enemies Ant. God helpeth me and our Lord is the receiver of my soul PSALM 75. The Church represents unto the Faithful who are figured by the People of Israel how JESUS CHRIST dying for us in Jerusalem was there buried there he arose again and there he established his Church calling thither all the Nations of the Earth to the knowledge of the true God and there reconciling us to his Eternal Father and uniting us by the tie of Charity that we might not be at Variance with any but in Peace with every one It is from thence that he began to enlighten us with the Light of his Grace to make us contemn the transitory Goods of this World which the Wicked enjoy but as in a Dream and which must vanish when they die The Church represents us this Divine Saviour triumphing over the Wicked and proposes unto us the severity of his Justice in the last Judgment when he shall come to judge the living and the dead with such Majesty and irresistible Power that all the Heavens and Elements shall be filled with horror and despair to the end that the terror of the threats of that last Judgment might not only prevent the stubbornness and boldness of Sinners and secure the innocency of the Just even amongst the Wicked but also that the Wicked fearing the Torments wherewith God punisheth Offences might at the same time as they dread the punishment for their Sins be restrain'd from sinning and by an internal motion be incited to call upon the goodness of God who changes their Mind and by an admirable effect of his powerful Grace cleanses the corruption and malice of their Will and reduces them not only to fear but also to love him Ant. And his place is made in peace and his habitation in Sion GOd is known in Jewry in Israel his name is great And his place is made in peace and his habitation in Sion There he brake the powers of bows the shield the sword and the battel Thou dost illuminate merveilously from the eternal mountains all the foolish of heart were troubled They slept their sleep and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands At thy reprehension O God of Jacob they have slumbred that mounted on horses Thou art terrible and who shall resist thee from that time thy wrath From heaven thou hast made thy judgment heard the earth trembled and was quiet When God arose unto judgment that he might save all the meek of the earth Because the cogitation of man shall confess to thee and the remains of the cogitation shall keep festival day to thee Vow ye and tender to our Lord your God all ye that round about him bring gifts To the terrible and him that taketh away the spirit of princes terrible to the kings of the earth Ant. His place is made in peace and his habitation in Sion PSALM 87. This Psalm is a Prophecy of the Passion Burial and Resurrection of JESUS CHRIST wherein the Royal Prophet represents unto us the Sufferings which this Divine Saviour was to undergo to satisfie the rigor of the Justice of his Father and that for the Sins of Man wherewith he had loaded himself Then having described his Burial he proposes unto us the Prayer he was to offer to his Eternal Father to demand from him his Resurrection not only for himself for being equal to his Father he had no need of Prayers that he might not be left in the power of Death who alone was free among the Dead and had power to leave his Soul and take her again but for us that he might make us partners with him of his new Life and give us an Example of perfect patience and submission to the Will of God Moreover it shews us the advantage we receive from the Resurrection of our Saviour making us to acknowledge that our Faith had been fruitless if he had continued in his Sepulcher for then our Sins had not been taken away Death is an effect of Sin so that had not our Saviour vanquished Death it could not have been said he had triumphed over Sin Ant. I am become as a man without help free among the dead O Lord the God of my salvation in the day have I cried and in the night before thee Let my prayer enter in thy sight incline thine ear to my petition Because my soul is replenished with evils and my life hath approached to hell I am accounted with them that descend into the lake I am become as a man without help free among the dead As the wounded sleeping in the sepulchers of whom thou art mindful no more and they are cast off from thy hand They have put me in the lower lake in the dark places and in the shadow of death Thy fury is confirmed upon me and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me Thou hast made my familiars far from me they have put me abomination to themselves I was delivered and came not forth mine eyes languished for poverty I cried to thee O Lord all the day I stretched out my hands to thee Wilt thou do merveils to the
dead or shall physicians raise to life and they confess to thee Shall any in the sepulcher dâ—â—â—e thy mercy and thy truth in perdition Shall thy merveilous works be known in darkness and thy justice in the land of oblivion And I O Lord have cried to thee and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Why dost thou O Lord reject my prayer turnest away thy face from me I am poor and in labors from my youth and being exalted humbled and troubled Thy wraths have passed upon me and thy terrors have troubled me They have compassed me as water all the day they compassed me together Thou hast made friend and neighbor far from me and my familiar because of misery Ant. I am become as a man without help free among the dead V. His place is made in peace R. And his habitation in Sion LESSON VII Taken out of the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews Chap. 9. The Church teacheth us by those words of the Apostle That the Mediator of the Old Testament who was the High-priest was not able to cleanse Mens Souls from their Sins nor to open Heaven for them either by the quality of his Priesthood of the Old Law or by the nature of the Sacrifice and Testament The High-Priest of 〈◊〉 was a Sinner like other Men he entred only into the maâ—â—â—â— Sanctuary and into a Tabernacle built by the Hands of Men he only offered Calves and other lawful Victims unto God and they could only receive from him Temporal Blessings It was therefore needful to have a Mediator of the New Testament and that was JESUS CHRIST who being both God and Man could not sin and was the Source and Fountain of all Sanctity Who by Sacrificing himself purified us by his one Blood with an Interior and Spiritual Purity delivering us from our Sins to make us in a condition to render God a truly faithful Service and entring into the true Sanctuary that is into Heaven and into the Bosom of God his Father he profered us to him and made us by his Will and Testament Partakers and Heirs of his Heavenly Inheritance CHrist assisting an high priest of the good things to come by a more ample and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand that is not of this creation neither by the blood of goats or of calves but by his own blood entred in once into the holies eternal redemption being found For if the blood of goats and of oxen and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled sanctifieth the polluted to the cleansing of the flesh How much more hath the blood of Christ who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God cleansed our conscience from dead works to serve the living God RESP. The Church minds to give thanks unto JESUS CHRIST for vouchsafing us his Mercy and Sacrificing himself on the Cross for our Salvation We must also abhor the Wickedness of the Jews who to satisfie their Malice put to Death this Divine Saviour R. The kings of the earth have risen up and the princes are assembled together against the Lord and against his Christ V. Why have the nations raged and the people meditated vain things Against the Lord and against his Christ LESSON VIII The Apostle instructs us That the Death which our Mediator was willing to suffer was to repair those Prevarications committed during the Old Testament and to render us capable of the effects of the Divine Promises of the New Testament and this founded on the natuere of the Testament For in the first place JESUS CHRIST being willing to give unto Man a New Testament it was also but requisit that it should be firm and unalterable the which to render it 't was necessary he should die for the Wills and Testaments of Men take no effect till after their Death for whilst they live they may either change or absolutely cancel them Secondly The New Testament was to correspond with the first neither was the Fire given without the effusion of Blood as appears in Exod. chap. 24. ANd therefore he is the mediator of the new testament that death being a mean unto the redemption of these prevarications which were under the former testament they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance For where there is a testament the death of the testator must of necessity come between for a testament is confirmed in the dead otherwise it is yet of no value whilst the testator liveth Whereupon neither was the first certes dedicated without blood RESP. The Faithful consider that the Jews put this Divine Testator to a most Ignominious Death who came to give them by his last Will and Testament a Heavenly Inheritance if by their Impiety and Ingratitude they had not made themselves unworthy it They likewise consider that as the Jews had no power to put our Saviour to Death but because he would himself so in voluntarily dying he triumphed over Death R. I am accounted with them that descend into the lake I am become as a man without help free among the dead V. They have put me in the lower lake in the dark places and in the shadow of death I am become as c. LESSON IX In this Lesson the Apostle represents unto us That in the Old Testament the Purifications were made by the shedding of Blood without which the Remission of Sins had not been given since it is that which is the confirmation of all Alliance FOr all the commandment of the law being read of Moyses to all the people he taking the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet-wooll and hyssop sprinkled the very book also it self and all the people saying This is the blood of the testament which God hath commanded unto you The tabernacle also and all the vessel of the ministery he in like manner sprinkled with blood And all things almost according to the law are cleansed with blood and without shedding of blood there is not remission RESP. In the Old Law in the Seventeenth Chapter of Leviticus God Commanded that the Blood of Victims should be covered to shew unto us that it was an effect of his Bounty that he vouchsafed to receive the lives of Innocent Beasts instead of that of Sinners But on the contrary the Jews instead of covering the Blood of JESUS CHRIST that is instead of acknowledging the excess of his Bounty wherewith God would that his Son who was the God of Man should die for them who deserved Death and that he should die on the Cross even for their Salvation who nailed him thereon But they instead of repenting themselves or being confounded for having put to Death their Saviour they moreover persecuted him even in his Sepulcher And this it is which the Faithful consider in the following Versicles R. Our Lord being buried his monument was sealed rolling a stone against the mouth of the monument setting soldiers who might guard it V. The chief priests came unto Pilate
and asked of him setting soldiers who might keep him R. Our Lord being buried AT LAUDS The Church tells us That to receive benefit from CHRIST's Death we must have a hearty and true Repentance ANTHYMN taken out of the Thirteenth Chapter of the Prophet Osee Ant. I Will be thy death O death thy bit will I be O hell PSALM 50. Miserere mei Deus c. as before p. 65. ANTHYMN taken out of the Twelfth Chapter of the Prophet Zachary The Church having declared unto us That JESUS CHRIST suffered Death to fulfill the Commands of his Father and to accomplish the Predictions of the Prophets She now represents us the grief the Converted and Penitent Jews had for having been of the number of those who put him to Death She also minds us to acknowledge the obligation we have to mortifie our selves to sigh and weep for having by our Sins contributed to his Death They shall lament him with lamentation as it were upon an only begotten because our innocent Lord is slain PSALM 42. The Church offers us the Prayer JESUS CHRIST made unto God his Father which declares the difference 'twixt his Sufferings and Death and ' twâ—â— the Death and Sufferings of Men. Their Deaths and Sufferings are the Punishments due to their Sins But JESUS CHRIST who is Sanctity it self and the Fountain of all good he only suffered Death because himself would and charged himself with our Iniquities that he might deliver us and satisfie the rigorous Justice of God his Father Then the Church shews us That God made his Light and Truth shine in this Divine Saviour by making his Innocency appear by the Wonders and Miracles that happened at his Death and by his glorious Resurrection from his Tomb and afterwards by his destroying of Jerusalem and by casting the reprobate Jews in everlasting Perdition JUdge me O God and discern my cause from the nation not holy from the unjust and deceitful man deliver me Because thou art God my strength why hast thou repelled me and why go I sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me Send forth thy light and thy truth they have conducted me and brought me into thy holy hill and into thy tabernacles And I will go into the altar of God to God which maketh my youth joyful I will confess to thee on the harp O God my God Why art thou sorrowful O my soul and dost thou trouble me Hope in God because yet I will confess to him the salvation of my countenance and my God Ant. They shall lament him with lamentation as it were upon an only begotten because our innocent Lord is slain Ant. Behold all ye people and see my grief The Psalm Deus Deâ—â—â—eus as before p. 69. Ant. From the gate of hell deliver my soul O Lord. The Canticle of Ezechias Isa 38. Under the Figure of Ezekias's Malady from which he was deliverd by God at the intercession of the Prophet Isay which signifies the health of God The Church represents unto us the deplorable condition whereinto Human Nature was reduced through Sin from which we are freed through the Grace of our Lord JESUS CHRIST She also admonisheth us to render our humble Thanks to the Divine Majesty I Have said In the midst of my days shall I go to the gates of hell I have sought the residue of my years I have said I shall not see our Lord God in the land of the living I shall behold man no more and the inhabiter of rest My generation is taken away and is wrapped together from me as the tent of shepherds My life is cut off as by a weaver whilst I yet began he cut me off from morning until night thou wilt make an end of me I hoped until morning as a lion so hath he broken all my bones From morning until evening thou wilt make an end of me As a young swallow so will I cry I will meditate as a dove Mine eyes are weakned looking on high Lord I suffer violence answer for me What shall I say or what shall he answer me whereas himself hath done it I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul Lord if mans life be such and the life of my spirit in such things thou shalt chastise me and shalt quicken me Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter But thou hast delivered my soul that it should not perish thou hast cast all my sins behind my back Because hell shall not confess to thee neither shall death praise thee they that go down into the lake shall not expect thy truth The living the living he shall confess to thee as I also this day the father shall make the truth known to the children O Lord save me and we shall sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of our Lord. Ant. From the gate of hell deliver my soul O Lord. Ant. O all ye that pass by this way behold and see if there be any grief like unto mine Psalm Laudate Dominum de coelis c. as before p. 74. V. My flesh shall rest in hope R. And thou shalt not give thy holy One to see corruption AT BENEDICTUS ANTHYMN THe women sitting at the monument lamented weeping for our Lord. THE CANTICLE OF ZACHARY Benedictus c. as before p. 78. V. Christ was made obedient for us unto death even the death of the cross R. Wherefore God hath exalted him and given him a name above all names Pater noster c. Miserere mei Deus c. as before p. 13. 65. THE PRAYER Respice Quoesumus c. as before p. 80. FOR SATURDAY IN Holy-Week AT COMPLINE Jube Domine c. as before p. 12. to p. 19. The Chapter and Hymn are omitted The Chapter is not said to signifie That after the Resurrection the Blessed will need no farther Instructions in their Estate of eternal Blessedness which is represented by the Chapters of Divine Offices The Hymn is also omitted to shew That after the Resurrection they praise not God in Heaven with such Hymns as they sang unto him in this World but that they will praise him after another manner Ant. And in the evening of the Sabaoth THE CANTICLE OF SIMEON Luke 2. NOw thou dost dismiss thy servant O Lord according to thy word in peace Because mine eyes have seen thy salvation Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples A light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost Even as it was in the beginning and now and ever and world without end Amen Ant. And in the evening of the Sabaoth which dawneth on the first of the Sabaoth came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary to see the Sepulcher Alleluiah V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit Let us pray VIsit we beseech thee O Lord this Habitation and repel far from it all Snares of the Enemy Let thy Holy Angel dwell therein to preserve us in Peace and thy Blessing be upon us for ever Through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son who liveth and reigneth with thee in the Unity of the Holy Ghost one God world without end Amen V. Our Lord be with you R. And with thy spirit V. Let us bless our Lord. Alleluiah Alleluiah R. Thanks be to God Alleluiah Alleluiah THE BLESSING V. THe Almighty and Merciful Lord the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost Bless and keep us Amen THE ANTHYMN OF THE HOLY VIRGIN O Queen of Heaven rejoyce Alleluiah For he whom thou deservest to bear Alleluiah hath risen as he said Alleluiah Pray unto God for us Alleluiah V. Rejoyce and be glad O Virgin Mary Alleluiah R. Because our Lord hath truly risen Alleluiah Let us pray O God who by the Resurrection of thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ hast vouchsafed to make glad the world Grant we beseech thee that by his Mother the Virgin Mary we may receive the Joys of Life eternal Through the same Christ our Lord. R. Amen V. The Divine Help always remain with us R. Amen Pater noster c. Ave Maria c. Credo in Deum c. FINIS