Sunday’s hymn, Lucis Creator optime, stands thus in translation:—­

     “O blest Creator of the light,
      Who makest the day with radiance bright,
      And o’er the forming world didst call
      The light from chaos first of all.

      Whose wisdom joined in sweet array
      The morn and eve and named them day,
      Night comes with all its darkening fears;
      Regard Thy people’s prayers and tears,

      Lest sunk in sin, and whelmed 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 heavenly 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,
      Doth live and reign eternally.  Amen.”

      (Translation by Dr. J.M.  Neale).

Structure. Vespers, in structure, resembles Lauds and consists of five Psalms.  It begins with Pater Noster, Ave (said silently), Deus in adjutorium,...  Domine ad adjuvandum....  Gloria Patri....  Sicut erat.  Alleluia or Laus tibi....  Antiphon begun only if the feast be not double; if feast be a double the antiphon is said in full before and after each psalm.  If feast be a semi-double or simple the antiphon is intoned at the beginning and is said in full at end of each psalm and then only.  Then are said Capitulum, Deo gratias, Hymn, versicle and response, antiphon to Magnificat, the canticle Magnificat, Gloria Patri....  Sicut erat....  Dominus vobiscum....  Et cum spiritu tuo, Oremus, collect, commemoration if any made by versicle and response and antiphon of Magnificat proper to commemoration with collect, Dominus vobiscum, Et cum....  Benedicamus Domino; Deo gratias, Fidelium animae....  Amen.  If Compline be not said immediately after Vespers, Pater Noster is added.

At the opening words of the Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis and Benedictus, it is a practice with many priests to make the sign of the cross from forehead to breast, as at Deus in adjutorium (cf. Ceremoniale Epis. lib.  II. i. 14).  This custom, where it exists, should be preserved (S.R.C., April, 1867).

Writers on liturgy tell us that the number of Psalms in Vespers have a symbolic meaning, typifying the five wounds of the Saviour, the last of which, the wound in the side, was inflicted on the evening of Good Friday, and the others, as the Church says in the hymn Vergente mundi vespere, at the waning of the day of the Old Law, before the dawn of salvation (Honorius of Autun, circa 1130).  Other writers say that these five psalms should produce acts of contrition for the sins committed during the day, by the five senses; and that they should be for us, morally, what the five lighted lamps were for the wise virgins in the Gospel parable (Amalare of Metz, circa 850).