mon, and, as it were, necessary portion, without which we cannot live. If of bodily food, not that which abounds for the supply of luxury and merriment, nor to be laid up for many years, but for our daily use and necessity. 6. Give us; for we must pray for all as our brethren, even although they hate us. Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you. And if thou see thine enemy hungry, feed him. 7. This day, because he would have us ask every day, and be always dependent on his providence. He also calls us off from an unnecessary anxiety for to-morrow, after the example of the manna which, of old, was given day by day. The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord. Give thou them food in due season. Open thy hand, and fill with blessing every living creature. V. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. 1. Many are the debts we owe to God: in many things we offend all, both by evil done, and by good left undone, which we ought to have done. Unless God of his mercy forgive, who can endure? If he will deal with us in the rigour of justice, who will answer one of a thousand? So that our only refuge is his mercy. 2. But this will fail us, if we do not forgive our neigh bours their offences, which are small, however, compared with our debt of ten thousand talents, which we owe to God. Yet such is the goodness of God, that he is ready to forgive ten thousand, if we remit the thousand. 3. But see and beware. He will forgive as thou forgivest, and this conditional clause thou addest to thy prayer. If thou forgivest grudgingly, slowly, insincerely, and imperfectly, expect and fear to receive the same measure from God. He merely pronounces sentence against himself, who asks for his debts to be forgiven him, while he does not forgive his own debtors, and that from his heart. If thou wilt mark iniquities, O Lord, Lord, who shall endure it? VI. And lead us not into We do not pray not to be tempted, because it is often good for us to be so, and God therefore wisely permits it. But we pray not to yield to temptation, and also that he may not suffer us to be tempted, when he sees that we shall give way. Temptation is often the occasion and ground for the exercise of virtue; but it belongs to God so to moderate temptation, and to help our weakness, that we may not be tempted above that we are able, but may come off unhurt. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart, and see if there is in me the way of iniquity, and lead me in the eternal way. VII. But deliver us from evil. From evils of every kind. As the Church prays in the Mass: Deliver us, O Lord, we beseech thee, from all evils, past, present, and to come; that is, temporal and eternal, both of soul and body. Secondly, from the evil one; that is, the malignant spirit; that he may have no power of exercising his envy and malice upon us. Not only those things which influence the soul are here reckoned as evils; but those also which so affect the body, the fortune, and the character, that evil and injury may be feared from them also to the soul. Though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Enlighten mine eyes, that I may never sleep in death, lest at any time my enemy say, I have prevailed against him. VIII. Amen. So be it, so be it. This should be pronounced with fervent desire. For the Lord hath heard the desire of the poor. Likewise with great confidence, as asking those things which he has enjoined us to pray for. As St. John says: This is our confidence which we have towards GOD, that, whatsoever we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us, and we know that we have the petitions which we request of him. CHAPTER III. CONTAINING SEVERAL LITANIES TO THE MOST HOLY TRINITY, AND TO EACH OF THE DIVINE PERSONS. Observe, devout reader, that this and the following Litanies, which are chiefly gathered from Holy Scripture, embrace the names, titles, attributes, and divine praises, applied to the divine nature, as well as to each separate person. More of the same kind might have been collected, but that the limits of this little book did not allow it. This, too, is to be said, that if any one, more captious than pious, thinks that these epithets should appear in the vocative rather than in the nominative case, he may supply or understand at such places the words, "Thou who art. Let him, however, remember, that the Church also prays thus; as, for instance, Agnus Dei, &c., miserere nobis: "Lamb of God, &c., have mercy upon us.' And again, Sanctus Deus, sanctus fortis, sanctus immortalis, miserere nobis: " Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us.' A LITANY TO THE MOST HOLY TRINITY. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us. God the Holy Ghost, Holy Trinity, one God, God, of whom, by whom, and in whom, are all things, Who alone art God, Who didst discover thy name to Moses, I AM WHO AM, God, the Lord of all Gods, God, in whom we live, and move, and are, God the Lord, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, To whom alone all honour and glory is due, With whose majesty the whole earth is filled, Who alone doest great wonders, Who art the most high Lord over all the earth, Who alone art good, God, whose wrath no man can resist, Who art, and who wast, and who art to come, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, King of kings, and Lord of lords, Who loosest the belt of kings, and girdest their loins, Who alone hast immortality, and inhabitest Lord of hosts, God of Israel, suffer wrong, and givest food to the hungry, God, who art compassionate, patient, full of mercy, and true, God, the just judge, strong and patient, God, whose wrath no man ean resist, Who openest thine hand, and fillest with Who art great in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought, Who doest great things, and unsearchable, and wonderful, of which there is no number, Father of orphans, and the judge of widows, Who loosest the fettered, and enlightenest the blind, Our mighty Lord, of whose wisdom there is no number, The Lord, who liftest up the meek, and Who art the one lawgiver and judge, that The Lord, who killest and makest alive, God, who willest not iniquity, Who hast power to cast body and soul into hell, The Lord, who formest the light, and createst darkness; who makest peace, and createst evil, Who multipliest nations, and destroyest them, and restorest them again after they are overthrown, Whose eyes are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men, Who discoverest deep things out of darkness, and bringest up to light the shadow of death, God, with whom there is no respect of persons, Who catchest the wise in their craftiness, and disappointest the counsel of the wicked, Who quickenest the dead, and callest those things that are not as those that are, God of all flesh, to whom no word is hard, Who hast made the earth by thy power, and prepared the world by thy wisdom, Who givest rain upon the face of the earth, and waterest all things with waters, Who givest food to all flesh, Who hast made all things for thyself, Who hast ordered all things in measure, Whom heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain, Who art terrible in thy counsels over the sons of men, Before whom the whole world is as the least grain of the balance, Who workest all things according to the counsel of thy will, Who hast measured the waters in the hol- Who rulest the power of the sea, and ap- The Lord, a great God, and a great King King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only |