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Catecharium

The Rule of Saint Benedict

Chapter 13. How Lauds are to be said on Week-days

2 sections

Saint Benedict of Nursia

Transcribed from a dated scan; artifacts may remain. Edition notes

ON week-days let Lauds be celebrated in manner following. Let the sixty-sixth Psalm be said without an antiphon, as on Sundays, and somewhat slowly, in order that all may be in time for the fiftieth, which is to be said with an antiphon. After this let two other Psalms be said according to custom ; that is, on Monday, the fifth and thirty-fifth : on Tuesday, the forty-second and fifty-sixth : on Wednesday, the sixty-third and sixty-fourth: on Thursday, the eighty-seventh and eighty-ninth: on Friday, the seventy-fifth and ninety-first : and on Saturday, the hundred and forty-second and the Canticle from Deuteronomy, which must be divided into two Gloria’s. But on the other days let canticles from the prophets be said, each on its proper day, according to the practice of the Roman Church. Then let the psalms of praise follow, and after them a lesson from the Apostle, to be said by heart, a responsory, a hymn, a versicle, a canticle out of the Gospel, the Litany, and so conclude.

The office of Lauds and Vespers, however, must never conclude without the Lord’s Prayer being said aloud by the Superior, so that all may hear it, on account of the thorns of scandal which are wont to arise; so that the brethren, by the covenant which they make in that prayer when they say ‘Forgive us as we forgive, ” may cleanse themselves of such faults. But at the other Offices let the last part only of the prayer be said aloud, so that all may answer: “ But deliver us from evil.”

Trans. D. Oswald Hunter Blair (in religion, Dom Oswald Hunter Blair; David Oswald Hunter Blair, 4th Baronet, 1853-1939), a Benedictine monk of Fort Augustus Abbey, Not part of a named series; a standalone Abbey Press printing, 1906. Public domain.

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