The Complete Manual of Catholic Piety / Containing a Selection of Fervent Prayers, Pious Reflection, and Solid Instructions, Adapted to Every State of Life. To Which is Annexed a Supplement, Containing Excellent and Approved Devotions, With the Epistles and Gospels for All the Sundays and Festivals of the Year.

by William Gahan

It is not thy interpreters, O God, who are now to instruct me; it is thy only Son; it is his word I am about to hear. I most gratefully embrace this heavenly doctrine. I stand up to declare in the face of heaven and earth, that I will walk faithfully in that way which he hath marked out for me. He tells me here, "that it will avail a man nothing to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul; that the sensual, the covetous, the worldling, the libertine, the detractor, and such as are insensible to the miseries of the poor, shall have no share in his heavenly kingdom; and that in order to become his disciple, I must take up my cross and follow him." I receive with my whole heart all these sacred maxims. Grant me the grace to put them in practice; for to what purpose should I declare myself thy disciple, if I were not to live according to the maxims of thy gospel?

At the end of the Gospel, the Clerk answers,

R. Laus tibi Christe.

R. Praise be to thee, O Christ.

Then say with the Priest, in a low voice, "May our sins be blotted out by the words of the Gospel."

The Nicene Creed.

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem cœli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum; et ex Patre natum ante omnia sæcula; Deum de Deo; Lumen de Lumine; Deum verum de Deo vero; Genitum non factum; consubstantialem Patri, per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines, et propter nostram salutem, descendit de cœlis, et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria Virgine; [Footnote 4] ET HOMO FACTUS EST. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, sub Pontio Pilato passus, et sepultus est; et resurrexit tertia die, secundum scripturas; et ascendit in cœlum, sedet ad dexteram Patris et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos; cujus regni non erit finis.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit; qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur; qui locutus est per prophetas. Et unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam Confiteor unam Baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi. Amen.