Preces Quotidianae
Praise Beyond Human Reach
Our human praise falls short of God's works and is only fit for nursing infants, but the prayer asks that our former abundance of sin may become abundance of good works and praise.
[i.] [e.] It does not reach Your works; it has more of silence; and it seems to come from the mouths of nursing infants.✦1 So that just as we once abounded in sins, we may now abound in good works and in the praises of God.
Preparation for the Blessing
This heading introduces the preparatory prayer before the Blessing, asking for freedom for repentance and praise, and for the opening of lips to declare God's praise.
Preparatory prayer before the Blessing.2 Lord, set me free for repentance—3 for my own repentance, and free to devote myself to Your praises—free to make room for repentance and for blessing.4 Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
The Unworthy Sinner's Longing
Recognizing that a polluted mouth is unfit for praise, the prayer trusts in God's goodness, begs to have its longing praise received, and wishes for true devotion.
But for me, Lord, a sinner and utterly unworthy, it would be more fitting to lie prostrate before You, and with weeping and groaning to plead for pardon for my sins, than to praise You with a polluted mouth. Yet I trust in Your inherent goodness; O receive the praises I long to sing—an unworthy sinner, truly unworthy,5 But if only I were devout and pleasing to You.
The Evening Recall
The evening office is introduced as a lifting of the mind to God; the hortatory and recalling songs show how the mind, stirred by morning, must be called back to itself and to its Leader in the evening.
Admonitions and preparatory meditations in6 the evening lifting of the mind to God. In war, f is hortatory (ἐγκελευστικός), suited for action.7 The first is the recalling song (ἀνακλητικός), by which wanderers are called back.8 So the human mind, just as it must be stirred awake in the morning, so toward evening9 to be called back, as if by a recall signal, to itself and to its Leader,10
Read the original Latin
i. e. Opera Tua non attingit, plus habet silentii; et videtur procedere ex ore lactentium.
Ut antea in peccatis, sic jam in bonis operibus et laudibus Dei abundemus.
Oratio preparatoria ante Εἰὐλογίαν.
Face me, Domine, pomnitenti:e. mez, laudibusque "Tuis vacare, Χωρῆσαι eis μετάνοιαν kai εὐλογίας.
Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem Tuam.
Sed peccantem me, Domine, et prorsus indignum magis deceret coram Te jacere prostratum, ac cum fletu ac. gemitu peccatorum veniam postulare, quam 'Te ore polluto laudare.
Verum de ingenita "Tua bonitate confido; O suscipe laudes quas decantare desidero, Indignus peccator, Certe indignus,
Sed utinam devotus et Tibi gratus.
Monita et Meditationes preparatorie in. Vespertina ad Deum elevatione mentis.
In bello f ἐγκελευστικὸς, ad agendum accommodatus.
cantus est 1 ἀνακλητικὸς, quo palantes revocantur.
Sic mens humana ut mane excitanda, ita ad vesperum
quasi anacletico ad se ducemque suum revocanda,
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.8.3;Heb.8.2 — From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength, because of your adversaries, to silence the enemy and the avenger. Heb.8.2 — a minister of the holy places, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
Notes
- 1 ↩Subject of attingit/habet/videtur is unstated in the supplied Latin (3rd-person singular only). Neighboring context is itself corrupt; rendered as impersonal 'it' pending better source restoration.
- 2 ↩Greek Εἰὐλογίαν is almost certainly a misspelling of Εὐλογίαν (eulogia, ‘blessing’); rendered as ‘Blessing’ from that intended sense.
- 3 ↩Source reading 'Face me, Domine, pomnitenti:e.' is treated as corrupt OCR for 'Fac me, Domine, poenitentiae' (imperative Fac + Domine + dative poenitentiae). Sense completed with s2 as one construction: Fac me … vacare.
- 4 ↩Reconstructed from garbled 'mez, laudibusque "Tuis vacare, Χωρῆσαι eis μετάνοιαν kai εὐλογίας.' as 'meae, laudibusque Tuis vacare, χωρῆσαι εἰς μετάνοιαν καὶ εὐλογίαν/εὐλογίας.' Latin vacare (dative: be free for / devote oneself to) is paired with Greek χωρῆσαι (make room for / have capacity for). εὐλογίας kept as blessing(s), matching the chapter's preparatory prayer before Εὐλογία.
- 5 ↩Source has a stray quotation mark before Tua (ingenita "Tua); translated as intended ingenita Tua bonitate without silent invention.
- 6 ↩Latin ends mid-phrase with bare 'in.'; treated as a title fragment continued by the next sentence rather than a complete clause. 'preparatorie' read as preparatory (for praeparatoriae / praeparatorie).
- 7 ↩Greek ἐγκελευστικός (enkekeustikos) means hortatory/inciting—here a classification of a war-song that urges action. The bare letter f is retained as a source label (parallel to the numbered type in the next section); its series function is unclear from this section alone.
- 8 ↩ἀνακλητικός (anaklētikos) is a technical Greek term for a recall signal or summoning-back chant; kept in parentheses because the Latin classifies song-types by Greek labels (cf. ἐγκελευστικός in the previous section).
- 9 ↩The Latin clause breaks at ad vesperum; the parallel gerundive continues in the next section (revocanda). Rendered as the incomplete correlative structure given here, without importing the following unit.
- 10 ↩anacletico is rare Greek-derived Latin (ἀνάκλησις / anaklēticus): a call or signal of recall, sometimes military or liturgical. Rendered as 'recall signal' rather than left untranslated.
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