St Sabbas, Bless This Blog

Having thought about blogging, having read many blogs many times, having spent much time posting on blogs - it seems time to try it myself.

This will be a Catholic blog, probably oriented toward prayer, devotion and liturgy, albeit with necessarily theological underpinning – for what ought theology be at base but worship, what ought worship be but theology?

The chosen blogname Psallite sapienter (Ps 46:8b, Vulg.), "sing ye wisely" has been chosen to allude to this theme; a line most apt, since I have a great love for the Divine Office, ever since I took it up in late 1994, and especially as I have been using the 1962 Breviary since the 11th of October this year, wherein this phrase occurs in the first psalm on Mondays at Lauds I (which I last prayed two days ago, celebrating the feast of St Francis Xavier).

I commend whatever may be worthy in the blog to the care and heavenly patronage of today's saint, St Sabbas the Abbot (439-532), who led a most austere and humble life in Palestine; pious accounts of his life are available online at various Orthodox websites (google him), and put most delightfully in a book by Richard Challoner available online from Google Books, The Wonders of God in the Wilderness; or the Lives of the Most Celebrated Saints of the Oriental Desarts [sic], pages 217- 227.

From the Byzantine Rite:

By a flood of tears thou didst make the desert fertile, and thy longing for God didst bring forth fruits in abundance; by the radiance of miracles thou didst illumine the whole universe: our father Sabbas, pray to Christ-God to save our souls.

From the Roman Rite:

V/.  Ora pro nobis, beate Sabba.

R/.  Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

Oremus.

Intercessio nos, quæsumus, Domine, beati Sabbæ Abbatis commendet: ut, quod nostris meritis non valemus, ejus patrocinio assequamur.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum.  R/.  Amen.