[Rank]
ln Octavam Nativitatis Beatae Mariae Virginis;;Semiduplex;;2;;ex Sancti/09-08

[Rule]
ex Sancti/09-08;
9 lectiones
Doxology=Nat

[Lectio1]
Lesson from the book of Canticles
!Song 8:5-6
5 Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.
6 Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames.

[Lectio2]
!Song 8:7-9
7 Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing.
8 Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?
9 If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she be a door, let us join it together with boards or cedar.

[Lectio3]
!Song 8:10-14
10 I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower since I am become in his presence as one finding peace.
11 The peaceable had a vineyard, in that which hath people: he let out the same to keepers, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver.
12 My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof.
13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice.
14 Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices.

[Lectio4]
From the Sermons of St. Cyril, Pope of Alexandria
!Against Nestorius.)
Behold a joyful congregation of all the Saints, who have come together with glad hearts at the bidding of Holy Mary, Mother of God, and always a Virgin. Praise and glory be unto thee, O Holy Trinity ! Who hast called us unto this Feast ! Praise be to thee also, Holy Mother of God ! Thou art the priceless Pearl of earth, thou art the undying lamp, thou art the crown of virginity, thou art the staff of the orthodox faith, thou art the everlasting temple, thou art the limits of the Illimitable, thou art Mother and Maiden, wherethrough cometh He of whom the Gospels tell, that Blessed One Who cometh in the Name of the Lord !

[Lectio5]
Through thee is the name of the Trinity hallowed, through thee is the precious Cross preached and worshipped throughout all the world. Through thee there is joy in heaven, through thee Angels and Archangels shout aloud, through thee the devils are put to flight, and man is recalled to Paradise. Through thee every creature once in bondage to idols turneth to the knowledge of the truth, through thee believers come to holy Baptism, through thee Churches are built in all the earth.

[Lectio6]
By thy help, the heathen turn to repentance. What more ? Through thee the Only-begotten Son of God, He in Whom is Life, and the Life is the Light of men, hath shined upon them that sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. Through thee the Prophets have prophesied, through thee the Apostles have preached salvation unto the Gentiles. Who can set forth all thy praise, O Mary, Mother and Maiden ? Dearly beloved brethren, let us glorify her, while we worship her Son, the Sinless Bridegroom of the Church, unto Whom be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
!Matt 1:1-17
The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob. And so on.
_
Homily by St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch (of Constantinople.)
!2nd on Matthew.
Is it not startling to hear that the ineffable God, Whom words cannot describe, nor thought grasp, and Who is in all things equal to the Father, was pleased to come to us through the womb of a virgin, to be made of a woman, and* to take for forefathers David and Abraham ? But why should I speak of David and Abraham ? It is more astounding still that He took for ancestresses those women whom I have just above named, (Thamar, and Ruth, and Bathsheba.) But when thou hearest this, stir up thy mind, and look not down, upon the lowly elements. Wonder rather at this, that the very and beloved Son of the Eternal God was content to become the Son of David, that He might give thee power to become a son of God; to have His own servant for His forefather, that He might make God Himself His servants' Father.

[Lectio8]
Thou seest how glad tidings these be even from the beginning. If thou be busy about such things as concern thine own honour, learn to believe such from the things which concern Him. For even by the measure of man's understanding it is harder to make God man than to hallow a man into a son of God. When therefore thou hearest that the Son of God is likewise the Son of David and Abraham, doubt no more that thou, which art a son of Adam, shalt be a son of God. He would not so have humbled Himself, had it not been to exalt us. He was born according to the flesh that thou mightest be born according to the Spirit; He was born of a woman that thou mightest cease to be the child of a

[Lectio93]
!Commemoratio for the Holy Martyr Nicomede.
This Nicomede was a Priest who was ordered to be seized during the persecution of the Christians by the Emperor Domitian, because he had buried the body of the Virgin Felicula, who had been slain by the Count Flaccus for confessing the Christian Faith. He was led to the statues of the gods, and forasmuch as he stoutly disobeyed the command to sacrifice to them, since sacrifice is due only to the one true God Who reigneth in heaven, he was flogged with scourges loaded with lead until he sealed his testimony by giving up his spirit to God. The said Count Flaccus ordered his body to be thrown into the floods of the Tiber, but Justus, clerk to Nicomede, sought diligently for it until he found it, and buried it honourably upon the road to Mentana, hard by the walls of the city.
&teDeum

[Commemoratio]
!Commemoratio S. Nicomedis.
@Commune/C2:Oratio proper
Give ear, O Lord, to our supplications, and that the prayers of thy blessed
martyr Nicomedes, for whose feast we are making ready, graciously pour upon us
thine everlasting mercy.
$Per Dominum