Our Morning Offering – 4 January – Octave of the Holy Innocents – “The Month of the Most Holy Name of Jesus”
Salvete Flores Martyrum
Hail, Ye Little Martyr Flowers
By Prudentius (c 348 – c 413)
(Aurelius Prudentius Clemens)
The Renowned Poet
All Hail! ye infant Martyr flowers,
Cut off in life’s first dawning hours.
As rosebuds snap’t in temptest strife,
When Herod sought Thy Saviours life.
Thou, tender flock of lambs, we sing,
First victims slain for Christ Thy King.
Beside the very altar, gay
With palms and crowns, ye seem to play.
All honour, laud and glory be,
O Jesu, Virgin-born, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To Father and to Paraclete.
Salvete Flores Martyrum is the Office Hymn for Lauds on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 Dec). Its stanzas are drawn from Prudentius’ Epiphany Hymn, Cathemerinon and were first assembled in the 1568 Breviary of Pope Pius V.
AnaStpaul 