Thursday, September 9, 2010

Ambrosian Preface of Our Lady's Nativity

The church of Milan appoints a proper Preface for every Mass; here is the traditional Preface, less its eschatocol featuring the angelic host singing Sanctus, for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady (the octave of which, it would seem, I am keeping):
Vere quia dignum tibi gratias agere, æterne Deus.  Recensemus enim præclarissimæ Nativitatis diem, quo gloriosissima Dei Genetrix, intemerata Virgo Maria, stella corusca et admirabilis, mundo effulsit.  Quæ nobis perennis vitæ januam quam Eva in paradiso clauserat, reseravit: nosque de tenebris ad lucis antiquæ gaudia revocavit.  Per eumdem...
(For it is truly meet to give thee thanks, eternal God; since we are celebrating the day of a most illustrious birth, when the most glorious Mother of God, the spotless Virgin Mary, the brigh and wonderful star, shone upon the world.  It is she who hath opened unto us again the gate of everlasting life, which Eve had closed in paradise: and hath brought us back from darkness to the joys of the ancient light.  Through the same Jesus Christ...)

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