A Collect for Christmas Eve
A short prayer from the Sarum Missal, for the night before Christmas.
This prayer was appointed in the Sarum Missal, the service book of the English Church in the Middle Ages, for Christmas Eve. It is followed here by the Sequence for the day, a poem dating back to the tenth century. This translation into Church English was made by Frederick E. Warren, Canon of Ely, in 1911.
The Collect
O God, Who makest us glad with the yearly expectation of our Redemption, grant that as we joyfully receive Thy only-begotten Son for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold the same Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son when He shall come to be Judge. Who livest and reignest God, world without end.
The Sequence
BEFORE the all-creating Lord
Let us rejoice with one accord:
Who made the worlds, the beaming sky,
The stars that glitter variously;
The sun, creation’s central light,
The moon which softly decks the night,
All other orbs that gleam around.
Sea, land, hills, plains, and deeps profound
The air, where fly the feather’d tribes,
The winds go forth, the tempest rides
All, now and ever, thee alone.
Ceaselessly praising, Father own;
Who to this lower earth hast sent
Thine only Son, all innocent,
Bringing salvation from on high,
For our transgressions here to die.
To thee, blest Trinity, we pray,
Guide all our goings in thy way,
Control our wills, our hearts revive,
To our offences pardon give.