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bis tuæ Israël.

Gentium et gloriam ple- the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. Glory, etc.

Gloria.

ANT. Salva nos, Domine, vigilantes; custodi nos dormientes, ut vigilemus cum Christo, et requiescamus in pace.

ANT. Save us, O Lord, whilst awake, and watch us, as we sleep; that we may watch with Christ, and rest in peace.

OREMUS.

Visita, quæsumus, Domi-
ne, habitationem istam, et
omnes insidias inimici ab ea
longe repelle Angeli tui
sancti habitent in ea, qui
nos in pace custodiant: `et
benedictio tua sit super nos
semper. Per Dominum nos-
trum Jesum Christum Fi-
lium tuum, qui tecum vivit
et regnat in unitate Spiritus
sancti Deus, per omnia sæ-
cula sæculorum. R. Amen.
V. Dominus vobiscum.
B. Et cum spiritu tuo.
V. Benedicamus Domino.
B. Deo gratias.

Benedicat et custodiat nos
omnipotens et misericors
Dominus, Pater et Filius, et
Spiritus Sanctus.
B. Amen.

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ANTHEM TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiæ.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Evæ.

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle.

Eia, ergo advocata nos

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of

mercy.

Our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope, all hail!

To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve;

To thee we send up our sighs, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears.

Turn, then, most gracious

Advocate! thine eyes of mercy towards us;

And, after this our exile, show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb, Jesus; O merciful, O kind,

O sweet Virgin Mary! V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

B. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

LET US PRAY.

:

O almighty and everlasting God, who, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, didst prepare the body and soul of Mary, glorious Virgin and Mother, to become the worthy habitation of thy Son grant that we may be delivered from present evils, and from everlasting death, by Her gracious intercession, in whose commemoration we rejoice. Through the same Christ our Lord. B. Amen.

V. May the divine assistance remain always with us. B. Amen.*

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V. Divinum auxilium maneat semper nobiscum. B. Amen.

Then, in secret, Pater, Ave, and Credo; page 14.

* In the Monastic Rite, this Response is as follows:

B. And with our absent Brethren. Amen.

B. Et cum fratribus nostris absentibus. Amen.

FEAST.

OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

1

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master, they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptising men in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of One God in Three Persons, should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not till after many centuries, that it was inserted in the Cycle of the Liturgical Year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church's Liturgy has the Holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all Religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The Feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our Redemption centre in It. The Feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday's Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all grace.

This explains to us, how it was that the Church was so long in instituting a special Feast in honour of the Holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the

1 St. Matth. xxviii. 19.

institution of Feasts did not exist in this instance. A Feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at some certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? It was from all eternity, it was before any created being existed, that God liveth and reigneth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a Feast in honour of that Mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by the fixing some one day in the Year, whereon the Faithful would assemble for the offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the Mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a Feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the 8th Century, the learned monk, Alcuin, had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the Apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Alcuin's writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred Liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to private devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a Feast. This Mass, however, became a great favourite, and was gradually circulated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany, by the Council of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.

In that 11th Century, however, a Feast properly so called of Holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium,-the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the Church's Calendar one of the richest of its Solemnities. Stephen, Bishop of Liége, solemnly instituted

the Feast of Holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church's law, which now reserves to the Holy See the institution of any new Feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen's successor in the See of Liége, kept up what his predecessor had begun.

The Feast became gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the 11th Century, that Berno, the Abbot of Reichnaw, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the Feast was established at the commencement of the same Century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated Monastery, drawn up in 1091, and where we find mention of Holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Under the pontificate of Alexander the Second, who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Church of Rome, which has frequently sanctioned the usages of particular Churches, by herself adopting them, was led to pass judgment upon this new institution. In one of his Decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the Feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason,-that, the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto; as, likewise, by several other formulas expressive of praise.'

Meanwhile, the Feast went on gaining ground, as we gather from the Micrologus; and, in the early part of the 12th Century, we have the learned Abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a Doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that Feast's institution in these words: "Having cele"brated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy

1 De feriis. Cap. Quoniam. This Decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander the Third.

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