Traditional Catholic Prayers: Prayers of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy Family
ON AWAKENING
Hymn to Christ the light and life
Christ come among men
as source of light,
your ineffable birth
is before the beginning of time.
and illumine the souls of the faithful.
You have created the world
and fixed the orbit of the stars;
you sustain the axis of the earth, you save all mankind.
You guide the sun in its course
to light up all our days
and the crescent moon
which dispels the darkness of night.
From your inexhaustible fount
you pour out the splendour of life making fruitful the whole universe. . .
Synesius of Cyrene
Prayer to Christ
Jesus, Immaculate Lamb,
you are both father and lamb
my brother and my friend; . . .
You are he who is all, and that all is in me;
You are he who is, and nothing exists apart from you.
Take refuge in him, you too, my brothers who will yet believe from the heart;
and when you have understood that only in him will you have life, then you will receive that joy that was promised:
“That which eye has not seen
nor ear heard,
nor has it entered into the heart of man to imagine”.
Grant to us, then, what has been promised.
We praise you, we thank you, we bear witness to you; we, weak mortals, give you glory,
you who alone are God in the flesh, for there is no other, living, reigning, ruling with God our Father in the unity and power of the Holy Spirit our Paraclete,
Glory to you, unceasingly, now and always and unto the endless ages of ages to come.
Amen.
Nativity Matins
Prayer for the Nativity
Jesus Christ, radiant centre of glory,
image of our God, the invisible Father,
revealer of his eternal designs,
prince of peace;
father of the world to come. . .
For our sake he took the likeness of a slave,
becoming flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
without intervention of man;
for our sake, wrapped in swaddling bands
and laid in a manger
adored by the shepherds
and hymned by the angelic powers, who sang:
Glory to God in the heavens
and on earth peace and good to men.
Make us worthy, Lord, to celebrate and to conclude in peace the feast which magnifies the rising of your light,
by avoiding empty words, working with justice, fleeing from the passions and raising up the spirit above earthly goods.
Bless your Church, formed long ago
to be united with yourself through your life giving blood.
Come to the aid of your faithful shepherds,
of the priests and the teachers of your Gospel.
Bless your faithful whose only hope is in your mercy; christian souls, the sick, those who are tormented in spirit and those who have asked Us to pray for them.
Have pity, in your infinite clemency, and preserve us in fitness to receive the future, endless good things.
We celebrate your glorious nativity
with the Father who sent you for our redemption,
with the life-giving Spirit,
now and for ever and through all ages. Amen.
Syriac liturgy
Hymn for the Nativity
do you truly judge with fairness?
We confess with unshakable faith
that God, who was made man
and who was given birth by a Virgin.
Before all time he was begotten.
of an immeasurable Father;
now we adore him who became incarnate
in a Virgin’s womb.
He is the creator of all,
himself remaining invisible and distinct from creation.
So we are able to say:
in you, Lord, is clemency; glory be to you.
O Holy God,
you have deigned to be born, a tiny child, from a Virgin.
O God, holy and strong,
you have willed to rest in the arms of Mary.
O God, holy and immortal,
you have come to rescue Adam from hell.
O immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, full of grace,
Emmanuel, whom you have carried,
is the fruit of your womb.
In your maternal bosom you have nourished all men.
You are above all praise and all glory.
Hail, Mother of God, joy of the angels.
The fullness of your grace
goes beyond what the prophets foretold.
The Lord is with you,
you have given birth
to the Saviour of the world.
Fragment from an ancient eucharistic liturgy
Christmas prayer
we praise you, Lord Jesus Christ,
God-Saviour of men,
stupendously powerful with the Father;
we praise you, we invoke you, we pray to you; assist us with your pardon, with clemency give us your grace.
Awaken in our hearts desires deserving of fulfillment; suggest to us words that are worthy to be heard; grant that our actions may be worthy of blessing.
We beg you to renew your birth in human nature, penetrating us with your invisible godhead
as you did in a unique way in Mary
and do now spiritually in the Church.
May you be conceived by our faith,
that a mind untouched by corruption may bring you forth, that the soul, ever confirmed by the power of the Most High, may offer you a dwelling place.
Be not born in us, but reveal yourself in us. Be truly for us the Emmanuel, God with us.
Deign to remain with us, to fight for us. Only so can we conquer.
Mozarabic liturgy
Prayers in Eucharistia Lauds
To Christ the first-born
MONDAY VESPERS HYMNS
Christ Jesus our only lord and saviour
the stars that shine and the powers in motion
all vanish in the splendour of your light
and remain still before the power of your greatness.
You alone are visible,
you reveal the image of the Father almighty,
and thus you manifest the sublimity of the Father and the Son. As the Father is almighty in the heavenly sphere,
so are you, the Son, in our universe
the first-born, the guide and lord of all power;
you, from the beginning, are the second grandeur
that comes from that of the Father;
you are the foundation of all the world.
You are our archetype,
the mind which ordains and the one who steers;
you are the way and the door that opens into light.
You are the image of justice;
you are ever our shining star.
To you we render thanks, praise and blessing.
Before you we bend the knee
and we ask, with trust, that we be made holy.
Grant that we may be ever strong in faith,
sound in mind and body
to sing for ever and without ceasing your praises,
that you, the Immortal, ,the Infinite, the Eternal
may be celebrated in every place.
You are the model and essence of the Spirit,
you are our blessed Father,
our king and our God.
With eyes fixed on you, we shall not die, 0 Lord;
if we confess your name we shall not be lost.
Anonymous hymn
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