Our Morning Offering – 12 March – Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent and the Memorial of St Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) – Father & Doctor
Lucis Creator Optime
O Blest Creator of the Light
By St Gregory the Great (540-604)
Pope, Father & Doctor
“Father of the Fathers”
O blest Creator of the light,
Who mak’st the day with radiance bright,
And o’er the forming world did’st call
The Light from Chaos First of all.
Whose wisdom join’d in meet array
The morn and eve and nam’d them day;
Night comes with all its darkling fears;
Regard Thy people’s pray’rs and tears.
Lest, sunk in sin and whelm’d with strife,
They lose the gift of endless life;
While thinking but the thoughts of time,
They weave new chains of woe and crime.
But grant them grace that they may strain
The heav’nly gate and prize to gain;
Each harmful lure, aside to cast,
And purge away each error past.
O Father, that we ask be done,
Through Jesus Christ, Thine only Son;
Who, with the Holy Ghost and Thee,
Shall live and reign eternally.
Amen
This hymn is used for Vespers (II) on Sundays throughout the year in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Breviary.
Trans John M Neale (1818-1866), 1851.
Tune: “Lucis Creator Optime” Gregorian Chant, Mode VIII, traditional.
AnaStpaul 