Stir-up Sunday

Four generations of the Royal Family together in 2019 for @PoppyLegion’s ‘Together at Christmas’ initiative🎄[Photo 📷 by @ChrisJack_Getty]

Excita, quǽsumus, Dómine, tuórum fidélium voluntátes: ut, divíni óperis fructum propénsius exsequéntes; pietátis tuæ remédia majóra percípiant. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen. 

STIR up, we beſeech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteouſly bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteouſly rewarded, through Jeſus Chriſt our Lord. Amen.

Presentation

Titian, The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple (1534–1538) [Detail]

For today's feast, the translation by the Benedictines of Stanbrook Abbey of Dom Prosper Guéranger's masterpiece The Liturgical Year has the following footnote:

From sources that do not come within the learned author's scope, it appears that in England the feast is of a much more ancient institution [than 1372], though the evidence gathered so far confines its observance to the monasteries. As Oblatio S. Mariae in templo Domini cum esset trium annorum, it occurs in several monastic calendars of Saxon times, and, still under the title of Oblatio, in some of later date. This is only one of many interesting facts illustrating the English movement of the tenth and early eleventh centuries in its devotional aspect : a side of the question which still awaits special study.

'Edmund, King of East Anglia, Killed by the Danes', from James E Doyle, A Chronicle of England, B.C. 55-A.D. 1485

Ave rex gentis Anglorum

miles Regis angelorum

O Edmunde flos martyrum

velut rosa vel lilium

funde preces ad Dominum

pro salute fidelium.

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