29 September

This is the feast of Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels. (In the old BCP, it's "St. Michael and All Angels".)

The preces in today's office ad laudes matutinas are particularly beautiful. The ICEL is not completely off the mark in its version, but the Latin original is outstanding.

Fratres carissimi, confiteamur Domino, cui astat multitudo angelorum psallentium in unum, et acclamemus gaudentes:
-- Benedicite Domino, omnes angeli eius.

Deus, qui angelis tuis mandasti ut custodiant nos in omnibus viis nostris,
- deduc nos hodie sine offensione per semitas tuas.
-- Benedicite Domino, omnes angeli eius.

Pater cuius faciem in caelis semper vident angeli nostri,
- fac nos sine intermissione quaerere faciem tuam.
-- Benedicite Domino, omnes angeli eius.

Deus, cuius filii erunt sicut angeli in caelo,
- da nobis castitatem cordis et corporis.
-- Benedicite Domino, omnes angeli eius.

Deus, in adiutorium populi tui mitte Michaelem principem magnum,
- ut eum defendat in proelio contra Satanam et angelos eius.
-- Benedicite Domino, omnes angeli eius.

Isn't that magnificent? Every intercession seems to have a little echo, whether from the Gospel, the lauds canticle from Daniel, the old Roman canon, or the Leonine prayer to St. Michael. The English versions are so often a disappointment, it's hard to believe how beautiful the Latin intercessions (or preces) are in the Pauline Liturgia Horarum.

(Fingers crossed that all that is accurate, too. I haven't got a spell-checker that works with Latin and I'm not a good proof-reader. I tend to see what I meant to put there instead of what's actually there.)