Seven psalms chosen by Cassiodorus (?485-?585) for expressing heartfelt repentance and confident hope.
The Seven Penitential Psalms were first enumerated by Cassiodorus (?485-?585), in his Commentary on the Psalms. St Bede was one of those who possessed a copy. These are not psalms of paralysing guilt but of repentance, a turning from darkness to light; joy is as much a theme as sorrow, and sorrow is soon superseded by hope and determination. The translation below, by Myles Coverdale, is taken from the English Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549.
A hymn of praise and thanksgiving, recalling the birth of Jesus Christ, and the promise of eternal life.
This hymn, often known by its Latin title of ‘Te Deum’, is attributed to St Nicetas (?335-414), bishop of Remesiana, now Bela Palanka in the Pirot District of Serbia. Today it forms part of the litany. The translation given here comes from the English Book of Common Prayer (1662).
A prayer that has been sung daily at Mattins since the fourth century.
This prayer, which comes from the Eastern churches, became part of daily Matins in the fourth century. The text given here is based on the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, a translation from the Latin of St Hilary of Poitiers (?300-368). Hilary spent time in the East in 359-360, and may have come across the prayer then. The Latin differs slightly from the Greek, but the differences are not particularly significant.
The Song of Simeon, or ‘Nunc Dimittis’, which Simeon sang as he took the infant Jesus in his arms.
When Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple at Jerusalem, as the law required, to present him to God as their firstborn, old Simeon saw in the tiny baby the fulfilment of all his hopes. The translation is from the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549.
The Virgin Mary’s spontaneous hymn of praise when she told her cousin about the angel Gabriel.
When the Virgin Mary told her cousin Elizabeth about the visit she had received from the angel Gabriel, she suddenly burst into this song, a very clever weaving together of Old Testament prophecies. This translation is taken from the English Book of Common Prayer, which first appeared in 1549.