Parisian Sequence for Our Lady's Nativity

From the 1738 Paris Missal comes this Sequence for Our Lady's Nativity:

1. Gaudii primordium,

Et salutis nuntium

Diem nostræ canimus.

2. Quæ dat hora Virginem,

Spondet Deum hominem:

En venit quem quærimus. 

3. Quam in matrem eligit,

Hujus ortum dirigit,

Deus omnis gratiæ.

4. Domum quam inhabitet,

Mox e qua nos visitet

Ornat Sol justitiæ. 

5. Quot micat luminibus,

Suis Deus usibus,

Quod vas fingit gloriæ!

6. Quot latent miracula!

Fiet hæc nubecula

In vim magnam pluviæ. 

7. Benedicta Filia,

Tota plena gratia,

Tota sine macula.

8. Cæli quod jam habitas,

Pande nobis semitas,

Prece, Virgo, sedula. 

9. Iram promeruimus,

Christe; pacem petimus:

Hanc da matris precibus.

10. Ut in nobis maneas,

Corda nostra præbeas

Pura culpis omnibus.

Amen. (Alleluja.)

And, thanks to Google Translate taking a French translation from the Schola Sainte Cecile's website, here is an English version:

We celebrate the day that begins our joy, the day that announces our salvation.

The moment that gives birth to the Virgin Mary promises us a God-man: the one we are expecting will appear.

The God of all grace, who chose Mary for her mother, presides over her birth: he overwhelms her with his blessings.

The Sun of Justice decorates with his gifts the house he wishes to inhabit, and from which he comes to make himself visible to men.

With what glory must shine this precious vessel, which God takes care to form for himself!

What prodigies are here confined! It is a little cloud which rises, but which will yield for us a fertile and abundant rain.

Holy and blessed daughter, filled with the graces of the Lord, pure and spotless virgin:

Pray for us unceasingly, O holy Virgin, and open to us by this means the entrance of heaven, where you dwell.

We have deserved thine anger, O Jesus; we sigh after our reconciliation: grant it at the prayers of thy Mother.

So that we may be a dwelling worthy of thee, O Lord, deign to purify our hearts from all sin. Amen. Alleluia. 

Nativitas tua Dei Genitrix Virgo

The Magnificat antiphon for the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity, Nativitas tua Dei Genitrix Virgo, is a translation of the Apolytikion of the Feast in the Byzantine Liturgy (Ἡ γέννησίς σου Θεοτόκε, χαρὰν ἐμήνυσε πάσῃ τῇ οικουμένῃ, ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἀνέτειλεν ὁ Ἥλιος τῆς δικαιοσύνης, Χριστὸς ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ λύσας τὴν κατάραν, ἔδωκε τὴν εὐλογίαν, καὶ καταργήσας τὸν θάνατον, ἐδωρήσατο ἡμῖν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον.).

Its Gregorian chant melody is interesting to me because it resembles a very ornate psalm-tone (rather in the style of that of the Ambrosian Transitorium Te laudamus Domine omnipotens), which I transcribe as follows, breaking the chant into sense-lines to reveal the repeated motifs:

Note that the first and fourth lines are all but identical as regards the chant, while the second, third and fifth lines are the same from the climacus (five descending notes) onwards, and after the quarter bar are all but the same as the first and fourth lines, just as the beginnings of the first and fourth (but for the climacus) resemble that of the second and to a lesser extent the fifth, while at the same time the beginnings of the third line is quite different in melody.

In the Dominican Rite, this antiphon is (or was) used also for Our Lady's Visitation and Presentation, as well as for other Marian feasts, in each case changing the word Nativitas into, respectively, Visitatio,  Præsentatio, and Solemnitas. Likewise, in the Monastic Breviary, the same is done for the feast of Our Lady's Maternity, changing Nativitas into Maternitas (and ending the chant at Christus Deus noster).

We had a lovely OF parish Mass in the evening of the Feast yesterday; perhaps next year our schola can learn this chant and sing it either at Mass or Benediction.

Ambrosian Preface of Our Lady's Nativity

The church of Milan appoints a proper Preface for every Mass; here is the traditional Preface, less its eschatocol featuring the angelic host singing Sanctus, for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady (the octave of which, it would seem, I am keeping):

Vere quia dignum tibi gratias agere, æterne Deus.  Recensemus enim præclarissimæ Nativitatis diem, quo gloriosissima Dei Genetrix, intemerata Virgo Maria, stella corusca et admirabilis, mundo effulsit.  Quæ nobis perennis vitæ januam quam Eva in paradiso clauserat, reseravit: nosque de tenebris ad lucis antiquæ gaudia revocavit.  Per eumdem...

(For it is truly meet to give thee thanks, eternal God; since we are celebrating the day of a most illustrious birth, when the most glorious Mother of God, the spotless Virgin Mary, the brigh and wonderful star, shone upon the world.  It is she who hath opened unto us again the gate of everlasting life, which Eve had closed in paradise: and hath brought us back from darkness to the joys of the ancient light.  Through the same Jesus Christ...)

Collects for the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity

The Sacramentary of Hadrian gives two Collects for Our Lady's Birthday; one without title, the other marked "Ad Missas" – for Mass.  The first is Supplicationem servorum tuorum, which the Dominicans and mediæval English Uses used; the second is Famulis tuis quæsumus, later used in the Roman Missal (still maintained to-day, with but a slight alteration) also by the extinct English order of the Gilbertines.

Supplicationem servorum tuorum, Deus, miserator exaudi: ut, qui in Nativitate Dei Genetricis et Virginis congregamur, ejus intercessionibus [SH included: complacatus] a te de instantibus periculis eruamur.  Per eumdem...

Famulis tuis, *quæsumus* [SH omitted], Domine, cælestis gratiæ munus inpertire: ut, quibus beatæ Virginis partus exstitit salutis exordium, Nativitatis ejus †votiva solemnitas† [modern: festivitas], pacis tribuat incrementum.  Per...

For what it's worth, I prefer the first Collect – which, it could be argued, is part of that elusive Patrimony that incoming Anglicans like to go on about!  Curiously enough, things Dominican are often quite closely related to things Sarum...

The Neo-Gallican Paris Missal of 1738 instead was given a new Collect, redolent of Scripture, in the manner then fashionable:

Deus, qui secundum propositum voluntatis tuae [Eph 1:5], mundum tibi reconciliare voluisti [II Cor 5:19]: praesta quaesumus, ut qui Nativitatem Virginis Mariae, de qua natus est nobis Christus Salvator [Mt 1:16; Lk 2:11], cum gaudio celebramus; ipsam quam Filius operatus est, salutem Matris intercessione consequamur.  Per eumdem...

The Antiphon Nativitas est hodie - Greek?

Nativitas est hodie sanctæ Mariæ Virginis, cujus vita inclyta cunctas illustrat ecclesias.

Today is the Nativity of Saint Mary the Virgin, whose renowned life enlighteneth all the churches.

I suspect very strongly that there is a Greek original for at least the second antiphon at Lauds of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady – why? because it ends cujus vita inclyta cunctas illustrat ecclesias, "whose renowned life enlighteneth all the churches": and to speak of churches in the plural is typically Greek, whereas the Latin West much prefers to speak of the Ecclesia in the singular.  (Note also that this phrase is also employed as the repetend for the 4th Matins Responsory.)

Similarly, the word hodie employed in the opening phrase is a dead giveaway, since many Latin anthems beginning Hodie are from Greek anthems beginning Σημερον, as I noted on this blog long ago.  (Very significantly, the 1st Matins Responsory begins with Hodie, and thus may very well also derive from a Greek original.)

Furthermore, that word inclyta, from in- plus clueo (itself cognate with Greek κλύω, meaning amongst other things to be called or named), signifying being renowned, that is, called great – yclept great, to use the ancient past tense revived by horrid Milton, which sounds so similar – savours somewhat of Greek to me, if only by its spelling...

Whatever of that, I do think that this antiphon at least may stem from Greek, since this Feast first arose in the East, and very often very old non-Scriptural antiphons and the like were taken from Greek anthems (as the Epiphany antiphons were, and as the Magnificat antiphon for this very Feast, as noted in an earlier post, derives from the Greek Troparion therefor).

Unfortunately, not having a copy of The Festal Menaion, I cannot access the Canon and other Byzantine liturgical texts for this day, so I cannot try and confirm this theory.

Any suggestions?

Three French Responsories

According to Dom Guéranger, the following three responsories were "composed by Fulbert of Chartres [†1028] and [King] Robert the Pious [972-1031].  France first adapted them, and the whole of Europe soon followed her example" - as did the nascent Dominican Order, for my O.P. Breviary still includes these, as follows, in place of what the Roman Office provides, as the third, sixth and ninth responsories of Matins for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady:

R/. iii.  Stirps Jesse virgam produxit, virgaque florem: * Et super hunc florem † Requiescit Spiritus almus.

V/.  Virgo Dei Genetrix virga est, flos Filius ejus. * Et super hunc florem.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. † Requiescit Spiritus almus.

(The rod of Jesse produced a branch, and the branch a flower: * And upon this flower rests the loving Spirit.  V/.  The Virgin Mother of God is the branch, her Son the flower.)

[Of course, this is based upon Isaias xi, 1-2a: Et egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet.  Et requiescet super eum spiritus Domini – "And there shall arise a branch from the root of Jesse, and a flower from his root shall go up.  And there shall rest upon him the spirit of the Lord".]

R/. vi.  Ad nutum Domini nostrum ditantis honorem, * Sicut spina rosam, genuit Judæa Mariam.
V/.  Ut vitium virtus operiret, gratia culpam. * Sicut spina rosam, genuit Judæa Mariam.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. * Sicut spina rosam, genuit Judæa Mariam.

(At the nod of the Lord enriching us with honour, * As the rose from the thorn, Judæa gave birth to Mary.  V/.  That vice might be overcome by virtue, sin by grace.)

[Again, the versicle derives from Cant. ii, 2: Sicut lilium inter spinas, sic amica mea inter filias – "As a lily among thorns, so my beloved among the daughters".]

R/. ix.  Solem justitiæ, Regem paritura supremum, * Stella Maria maris † Hodie processit ad ortum.
V/.  Cernere divinum lumen gaudete, fideles. * Stella Maria maris.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. † Hodie processit ad ortum.

(In order to bring forth the Sun of justice, the sovereign King, * Mary, the star of the sea, to-day proceeded to her rising.  V/.  To behold the divine light rejoice, ye faithful.)

[The "Sun of justice" is foretold in Malachias iv, 2.]

Sure enough, Migne's trusty Patrologia Latina, volume CXLI, column 345 (you may consult the volume here), gives the texts of these responsories among the works of Bishop Fulbert.

Furthermore, what the Roman and Dominican Breviaries provide for the lessons of the Second Nocturn of Matins of Our Lady's Birthday, as a sermon of St Augustine, is actually Fulbert's ninth sermon to the people, for the Annunciation (P.L., vol. CLXI, coll. 336-340), beginning Adest nobis dilectissimi.  (The Breviaries only take up its beginning, of course, quoting from most of parts 1 and 2.)  Most interestingly, from his ardent prayer to Our Lady which which he ends his effusion of praise (n. 5, coll. 338-340) comes the well-known anthem Sancta Maria, succurre miseris, used for a thousand years in the Office on Marian feasts and commemorations.

Herewith, a translation of this excerpt, gratefully lifted from an online version of this Office (which I trust will be perfectly alright, especially as, given its extreme quaintness, I think it is probably the Marquess of Bute's translation, by now long out of copyright):

Dearly beloved brethren, the day for which we have longed, the Feast-day of the Blessed and Worshipful and Alway-Virgin Mary, that day is come.  Let our land laugh and sing with merriment, bathed in the glory of this great Virgin's rising.  She is the flower of the fields on which the priceless lily of the valleys hath blossomed.  This is she whose delivery changed the nature that we draw from our first parents, and cleansed away their offence.  At her that dolorous sentence which was pronounced over Eve ended its course; to her it was never said: In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.  She brought forth a Child, even the Lord, but she brought him forth, not in sorrow, but in joy.

Eve wept, but Mary laughed.  Eve's womb was big with tears, but Mary's womb was big with gladness.  Eve gave birth to a sinner, but Mary gave birth to the sinless One.  The mother of our race brought punishment into the world, but the Mother of our Lord brought salvation into the world.  Eve was the foundress of sin, but Mary was the foundress of righteousness.  Eve welcomed death, but Mary helped in life.  Eve smote, but Mary healed.  For Eve's disobedience, Mary offered obedience; and for Eve's unbelief, Mary offered faith.

Let Mary now make a loud noise upon the organ, and between its quick notes let the rattling of the Mother's timbrel be heard.  Let the gladsome choirs sing with her, and their sweet hymns mingle with the changing musick.  Hearken to what a song her timbrel will make accompaniment.  She saith: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.  For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden, for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.  For he that is Mighty hath magnified me.  The new miracle of Mary's delivery hath effaced the curse of the frail backslider, and the singing of Mary hath silenced the wailing of Eve.

It seems strange that, by the 1960's, when it had been known for well over a century that this sermon was not Augustine's, but Fulbert's, that the title of it in the Breviary had not been amended.  Oh well, it just goes to prove the old clerical joke, "He lies like a Second Nocturn"!

Fulbert, by the way, as befits such a devout client of Our Lady, while not canonized at Rome, has a local cult approved for the dioceses of Chartres and Poitiers – I suppose he could be styled Blessed Fulbert; the modern Martyrology lists him as a saint, albeit with a local cult only.  He it was who greatly promoted the establishment in the West of the Feast of Our Lady's Nativity, especially by his famous and widely-disseminated sermon on the subject, Approbate Consuetudinis (Sermon 4, on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in P.L. CXLI, 320-324, which can be accessed via this link), evoking the image of Our Lady as Stirps Jesse... this sermon, and the chants associated with it (as above), were worked into the liturgical texts of the feast across mediæval Europe.  However, he is most famous for rebuilding Notre-Dame de Chartres after it was destroyed by fire.

As for good King Robert II, the Pious, he had once been a fellow student of young Fulbert at the cathedral school at Rheims, and was very religious – that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, tells me that "he was musically inclined, being a composer, chorister, and poet, and making his palace a place of religious seclusion, where he conducted the matins and vespers in his royal robes."  Unfortunately, his scheming wife turned his sons against him, and he died in the midst of intestine war against those Absaloms.

A Watered-down Old Hymn for Our Lady's Nativity

No one would begrudge the addition of new, fitting hymns to the Office repertoire.  That said - curmudgeons, silence! - not every addition is absolutely excellent.  Even the real improvements (as opposed to the strange changes) made to the hymns of the Office in its postconciliar root-and-branch reform have some odd aspects: a certain failure of nerve, and in particular a resistance to the lectio difficilior, to hard or harsh or surprising words - which were replaced (by Lentini et al.) with softer, milder, frankly less interesting words: a phrasal dolce far niente!  

Remember, lectio difficilior potior: the more difficult reading is the stronger and more potent.  The same sad watering-down cursed the corpus orationum of the modern Mass and Office.  Anything that might create consternation or concern was stript away, to be replaced with nice nostrums.

So, to the hymn at hand: the modern version of O sancta mundi domina, a hymn for Our Lady's Nativity, which the modern Divine Office appoints for use at Lauds.  Luckily, Dom Guéranger, in his incomparable collection The Liturgical Year, provides the ancient text for this hymn; I annotate the points at which the compilers of the new liturgy made changes that, I argue, dumb down the more interesting aspects of the verbiage of this sacred song:

O sancta mundi domina,

Regina cœli inclyta!

O stella maris, *Maria,*  [1971: fulgida]

Virgo mater *deifica!*  [1971: mirifica]

*Emerge*, dulcis filia,  [1971: Appare]

Nitesce jam virguncula,

Florem latura nobilem,

Christum Deum et hominem.

Natalis tui annua

En colimus solemnia,

Quo stirpe *electissima*  [1971: delectissima]

Mundo fulsisti genita.

Per te sumus, terrigenæ

Simulque jam cœligenæ,

Pacati pace nobili

More *inestimabili.*  [1971: non æstimabili]

*Hinc* Trinitati gloria  [1971: Sit]

*Sit semper ac victoria,*  [1971 omits]

*In unitate solida,* [1971 omits]

Per sæculorum sæcula.  

[1971 adds: Cujus vocaris munere

Mater beata Ecclesiæ.]

Amen.

(Guéranger's tome supplies the following vernacular version, which I have somewhat emended: "O world's holy Lady, / illustrious Queen of heaven! / O Mary, star of the sea, / Virgin Mother made godlike! / Come forth, sweet daughter; / grow verdant, tender branch; / for thou wilt bear the noble flower, / Christ, both God and man. / Lo! we are celebrating / the annual solemnity of thy birth / whereon, sprung from a most choice root, / thou didst begin to shine upon the earth. / Through thee, we who are earth-born, / yet now heaven-born too, / have been set at peace by a noble pact / in wondrous wise. / Wherefore glory to the Trinity / be ever, and victory, / in solid unity, / through ages of ages.  Amen.")

Some commentary about all these changes:

1. Replacing Maria with fulgida subtracts the usual play on words, as if it were beneath notice to recall that "Mary" was oft said to mean "star of the sea";
2. Mirifica is so much weaker than deifica, which latter is by far the more meaningful, especially as it attests to the truth that the Latin West no less than the Greek East believes in the doctrine of divinization by grace;
3. Apparently Appare ("Appear") is a more agreeable euphemism for Emerge, as applied to Mary's birth;
4. Delectissima is just nice, while electissima (most choice, chosen, predestinate) is far more significant when applied to Our Lady;
5. Of course, non æstimabili means much the same as inestimabili!
6. The doxology has been mucked with - the older focussed on the solid unity of the Trinity, while the newer dumps all that and replaces it with a clumsy reference to Paul VI's declaration of Our Lady as Mother of the Church (topical if not controversial in the late sixties, oh so ho-hum today).

Why couldn't the relevant cœtus have simply let well alone and allowed this elegant hymn to stand as it was?

Our Lady's Birthday

Your birth, O Virgin Mother of God, heralded joy to the Universe; for from you rose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God.  He took away the curse, He gave the blessing, and by trampling death, He gave us everlasting life.

—Byzantine Rite, Troparion of the Nativity of Our Lady

The Holy Roman Church faithfully re-echoes this ancient song of the Christian East:

Nativitas tua, Dei Genetrix Virgo, gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo; ex te enim ortus est sol justitiæ, Christus, Deus noster: qui solvens maledictionem, dedit benedictionem; et confundens mortem, donavit nobis vitam sempiternam.

— Magnificat anthem at Vespers, Nativity of Our Lady

Thus, throughout God's earth this day, all true Christians, faithful to the tradition handed down from the primitive Church, fulfil the prophecy in due time made by the Mother of God herself: Ecce enim, ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes – "For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed".  Let Protestants consider whether they are any ways obedient to this word of Holy Writ.

In honour of this great day, may I suggest we most respectfully hail the Blessed Virgin with the Ave Maria, as God's own angel-ambassador did?  It would be good to tell our Rosaries and thus commemorate the principal events of the lives of Mary and her Divine Son.  We will please her and the Almighty Who made her by imitating all her virtues, above all by giving the glory to God as she did in her Magnificat: "My soul magnifies the Lord... for He hath done great things to me".

Santa Maria in Vallicella

The titular of the Chiesa Nuova, seat of the Roman Oratory and resting-place of St Philip Neri, is Our Lady, and the patronal feast is kept each passing year on her birthday - the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the 8th of September, some nine months having passed since her Immaculate Conception:

On the eighth of September 

Saint Anna gave birth 

and all of the world 

was filled with joy and mirth: 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria, 

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria.

Whatever of this little ditty (to the tune of the famous Lourdes hymn), on the 8th of September I will arrive early in the morning in the Eternal City, and hope to keep the feast of Our Lady's Birth  at her famous church there.  

Infant Mary, Joy of earth,

We with all this world of mirth,

Light-hearted and joy-laden,

Greet the morning of thy Birth,

Little Maiden.

I note certain other saint's days of special Roman relevance ensue:

• Thursday the 10th is the feast of St Nicolas of Tolentino: his church, San Nicola da Tolentino agli Orti Sallusti ("in the Gardens of Sallust"!) is home to Rome's Armenian Rite Catholics;
  
• Friday the 11th is the commemoration of SS Protus & Hyacinth, specially venerated at both Propaganda Fide and the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (where St Philip and his first disciples conducted their devotions; they even had charge of it for some years);
  
• Monday the 14th is of course Holy Cross Day, and I hope to go to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme to adore* the portion of the Holy Cross and other relics of Our Lord's Passion preserved therein;
  
• Thursday the 17th is the commemoration of the Sacred Stigmata of St Francis, and an excellent day to visit Assisi, being the day before I return to Australia (and that day itself is amusingly appropriate: it's the feast of St Joseph of Cupertino, a holy Franciscan best known for his miraculous flights and levitations, who is thereby a patron saint of air travel).

[* To relics or icons of the saints, one pays a relative veneration - since it is directed not to the material object, but "through" it to the holy elect of God whose relic or image it is, since to such friends of Christ in heaven are due our love and reverence - while to relics or icons of Our Saviour, one pays a relative adoration - not adoring the object, which would be mad and detestable idolatry, a bowing down to sticks and stones, but a faithful direction of our worshipping gaze beyond the material to God the Son Incarnate; and in the special case of relics of His Passion, such as fragments of the Holy Cross, the Lance, the Nails, the Crown of Thorns, we must ever bear in mind that these were drenched in His Precious Blood, in the Gore of God!]

Remember to pass on any useful hints for a first-time traveller to Italy...

Mass for the Nativity of Our Lady

"On the eighth of September St Anna gave birth

And all of the world was filled with joy and mirth."

- No, we didn't sing that cringeworthy couplet tonight!

Instead, after Fr Rowe heard some confessions (incl. yours truly's), we had a Missa Cantata at 6.30pm.  Rosemary and Fadi joined me to form the choir; as usual I cheated and sang the Rossini psalm-tone versions of the Propers.  I felt it best to be safe, so we used old faithful Missa de Angelis and Credo III: the thirty or so congregants obviously approved, since they sang up well.  At the Offertory, we sang Ave maris stella and the simple Salve, and at Communion Ave verum - for obvious reasons.  Owing to a overzealous choirmaster (me), anxious to launch straight into the Ave maris stella, the Offertory verse was accidentally left out - so I sang it at Communion together with the real Communion!  For a processional, we sang "Maiden yet a Mother, Daughter of thy Son" (a lovely Englishing by Mgr Knox of Dante's prayer of St Bernard to the Virgin in Canto XXXIII of his Paradiso - see below), and for a recessional, the very popular "Hail Queen of heaven".  After Mass, which ended punctually in just under an hour, Fr Rowe returned to the altar rails to enroll five persons in the Brown Scapular, which he had commended inter alia in his sermon (in which he had also encouraged us to consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin, and to imitate her in living virtuous lives in humility and obscurity as she did).

Today I've returned to the Breviary (altho' I skipped Matins owing to its length, and started with Lauds and Prime at breakfast time, and broke my trip home from work up by stopping to say Terce, Sext and None at the Redemptorist Monastery church and pay my devotions to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and to those of His saints whose images are there): so, after Mass, I said Vespers and Compline as my thanksgiving.

Fr had Aaron and I join him for dinner, and we had a good celebration of Our Lady's feast, including some festal bottles of Tripel Karmeliet beer.

And so to end with the above-mentioned hymn to Our Lady:

Maiden, yet a mother, 

Daughter of thy Son, 

High beyond all other, 

Lowlier is none; 

Thou the consummation 

Planned by God's decree, 

When our lost creation 

Nobler rose in thee! 

Thus His place prepared, 

He Who all things made 

'Mid His creatures tarried, 

In thy bosom laid; 

There His love He nourished 

Warmth that gave increase 

To the root whence flourished 

Our eternal peace. 

Noon on Zion's mountain 

Is thy charity; 

Hope its living fountain 

Finds on earth in thee. 

Lady, such thy power, 

He who grace would buy 

Not as of thy dower, 

Without wings would fly. 

Nor alone thou hearest 

When thy name we hail; 

Often thou art nearest 

When our voices fail; 

Mirrored in thy fashion 

All creation's good 

Mercy might, compassion 

Grace thy womanhood. 

Lady, lest our vision, 

Striving heavn'nward, fail, 

Still let thy petition 

With thy Son prevail, 

Unto Whom all merit, 

Pow'r and majesty 

With the Holy Spirit 

And the Father be.

Our Lady's Birthday

Of your charity, please salute Our Lady today on this the feast of her birth, nine months after the feast of her Immaculate Conception:

Ave, Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

And after the Angelic salutation, to which St Elizabeth's blessing of Our Lady is attached, please, when praying to Holy Mary, remember me, a sinner in need of prayers:

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ.  Amen.