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Chapter 52PrecesPriv.1.52

Preces Quotidianae

Introduction to Daily Prayers

The heading introduces the daily prayers that follow.

For each day:1

Morning Meditation

The morning prayer begins with a resolve to meditate on God, citing Psalm 62:7-8.

In the morning, Lord, I will meditate on You, for you have been my helper. Psalm 62.2 7, 8.

Blessing for Creation and Time

A prayer blessing God for the sun, moon, stars, seasons, and the ordering of days, weeks, months, and years.

Blessed are you, Lord, for the Sun,3 who made the two lights, the Moon,4 the greater and the lesser, and the stars, Gen.✦ 1. 16. for illumination, for signs, for seasons, Gen.✦5 1. 14. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter; Ps.6 104.7 19. Days, weeks, months, years; and that they might preside✦8 day and night.✦

Confession of Sin

A humble confession acknowledging sin and uncleanness before God, alluding to Isaiah 64.

Look, you are angry—and indeed we have sinned. We have all become like someone unclean, and like a menstrual cloth9

Read the original Latin

DIEI CGU VOI VE:

IN matutinis, Domine, meditabor in Te,

quia fuisti adjutor meus. Psal. lxin. 7, 8.

Benedictus es, Domine, Solem,

Qui fecisti duo luminaria ᾧ Lunam,

majus et minus, et Stellas, Gen. i. 16. illuminationem, in 4 signa, tempora, Gen. i. 14. Ver, ZEstatem, Auctumnum, Hyemem; Psal. civ.

19. Dies, Septimanas, Menses, Annos; et ut preessent

diei ac nocti.

ECCE, tu iratus es, et enim nos peccavimus, Facti sumus ut immundus omnes nos,

et quasi pannus menstruatz

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.1.16 — And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.
  2. ↩Gen.1.14-Gen.1.15 — And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." Gen.1.15 — and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth — and it was so.
  3. ↩Gen.1.14-Gen.1.18 — And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." Gen.1.15 — and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth — and it was so. Gen.1.16 — And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. Gen.1.17 — And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, Gen.1.18 — and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
  4. ↩Gen.1.18 — and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Source reading 'DIEI CGU VOI VE:' is corrupt or heavily abbreviated. 'DIEI' is clear ('of the day' / genitive of dies). The remainder is treated as a plausible corruption of 'cuiusque', yielding the common daily-prayer heading Diei cuiusque ('Of each day'), supported by the chapter title Preces Quotidianae and the following matins petition.
  2. 2 ↩Source reads 'lxin.', which is not a well-formed Roman numeral. Rendered as Vulgate Psalm 62 (lxii), matching the quoted Latin and the following '7, 8.' verse markers; modern numbering would be Psalm 63.
  3. 3 ↩Latin is a short, comma-ended fragment (Benedictus es, Domine, Solem,). Solem is accusative; the most natural sense in a daily blessing is praise of the Lord for the Sun, with the relative creation clause continuing in the next section.
  4. 4 ↩Source has an unexpected Greek ᾧ between luminaria and Lunam; treated as corrupt separator/punctuation and omitted in the English. Neighboring sections continue the Genesis 1:14–16 creation sequence (Sun; greater and lesser lights; stars).
  5. 5 ↩Source has 'in 4 signa'; the stray '4' is treated as likely typesetting/OCR noise (Gen 1:14 has in signa et tempora), not as the numeral four.
  6. 6 ↩ZEstatem is taken as Æstatem/Aestatem (summer); Auctumnum as autumn (auctumnus); Hyemem as hiemem (winter).
  7. 7 ↩civ. read as Roman numeral 104 completing Psal. civ.; if a different abbreviation was intended, recheck against the printed witness.
  8. 8 ↩preessent (praeesse): 'preside' / 'rule' / 'have charge over'; next section completes the object as 'over day and night' (diei ac nocti).
  9. 9 ↩Source surface menstruatz is corrupt; translated as menstruatae (gen. of menstruata), the standard Vulgate reading with pannus in Isa 64:6.

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