Preces Quotidianae
Evening Watchfulness
The soul declares its intention to sleep while the heart keeps watch, and asks for the Lord's visitation and revelation in night visions.
Lord, I will sleep, but1 My heart will keep watch.✦ Lord, visit me with the visitation.✦2 of the saints, and reveal to me my ear in the night visions✦3
Purity of Sleep
The petitioner asks that sleep be a rest from labor and a cessation from sin, and that dreams be pure and not offensive to God.
May my sleep be as rest from labor,4 So too, a cessation of sin.5 Let me not think of anything, even in dreams, that would offend You or defile me.
Night Remembrance of God
The prayer remembers that night is not night for God, and asks for grace to remember God's name and keep His law.
Lord, remember with the6 that night is not night, and that darkness is like the light of noon.7 Lord, as sleep flees from my eyes, to remember Your name at night, so that I may keep Your law.
Night Meditation and Self-Examination
The soul asks for the gift of night meditation, self-examination, and discernment of what is right and pleasing to God and others.
Grant that I may meditate in my heart at night. to be troubled and to search my spirit, and not to ignore the rebuke of my inmost self,89 What is done rightly, what more rightly, How much more acceptable to You, How much more pleasing to people;
Divine Presence and the Sleep of Death
The prayer asks for God's presence in all paths and beds, both in the light and in darkness, and then meditates on the sleep of death and the tomb.
to surround my paths and my bed with You, That You may possess my ways: to see You with the lamp burning, and to see You with the lamp put out. Grant, Lord, that I may think10 A long sleep, The sleep of death, The tomb's bed,
Read the original Latin
Domine, ego dormiam, sed
Cor meum vigilabit.
Visita me, Domine, visitatione
sanctorum, et revela mihi
aurem in visionibus noctis.
Sit somnus meus, ut laboris,
sic peccati cessatio.
Ne quid vel per insomnia cogitem,
quod Te offendat, vel me polluat. Domine, recordari apud Τὸ
noctem non esse noctem, et
tenebras esse instar lucis meridiansze. Domine, fugiente somno ab oculis meis, nocte recordari nominis Tui,
ut custodiam legem Tuam.
Da meditari nocte cum corde,
et excruciarl, et scrutarl spiritum meum, et increpationem renum non negligere,
Quid recte, quid rectius,
Quomodo Tibi magis acceptus,
Quomodo hominibus magis gratus;
Semitas meas, et lectum meum, Te circumdare,
Te possidere Vias meas: Lucerna ardente videre Te, Lucerna exstincta videre Te. Da, Domine, cogitare
Somnum longum,
Somnum mortis,
Lectum sepulchri,
Scripture echoes
- ↩Song.5.2 — I am asleep, but my heart is awake. The voice of my beloved knocks: "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the drops of night."
- ↩Ps.105.4 — Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his face continually.
- ↩Job.4.13 — When deep sleep falls on people, amid thoughts from visions of the night,
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin unit ends mid-thought on adversative sed; the next section continues Cor meum vigilabit.
- 2 ↩Section ends mid-phrase; ablative visitatione awaits its complement (next section begins sanctorum).
- 3 ↩Continues previous petition (revela mihi…): biblical idiom of uncovering/opening the ear for revelation; fragment is the object phrase only.
- 4 ↩Elliptical ut laboris: most plausible sense is sleep as rest after/from work (laboris as genitive of source/relation). The trailing comma and next section (sic peccati cessatio) suggest a parallel: rest from labor // cessation of sin.
- 5 ↩Continues the prior clause Sit somnus meus, ut laboris… with correlative ut…sic and elliptical cessatio after laboris: may sleep be as rest from labor, so also rest/cessation from sin.
- 6 ↩Source ends mid-phrase: Latin Domine, recordari apud plus Greek Τὸ (neuter article 'the'). Neighboring next section begins noctem non esse noctem, et, so the petition is almost certainly incomplete in this printed section break. Rendering keeps the readable fragment without inventing the missing object/clause.
- 7 ↩Source reading meridiansze is almost certainly a corruption of meridianae (of midday/noon); translation follows that corrected sense.
- 8 ↩Source readings `excruciarl` and `scrutarl` are treated as corrupt for `excruciari` and `scrutari` (infinitives continuing the petition series after Da…).
- 9 ↩`increpationem renum` keeps the biblical 'reins' image as the conscience-bearing inmost self; not merely physical kidneys.
- 10 ↩Fragmentary petition infinitive (Da... cogitare); object of thought continues outside this section (neighboring somnum longum).
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