Forty hours

The Birmingham Oratory holds its annual Forty Hours festival from the first Tuesday of October to the following Thursday, with an all night vigil from 10pm on Wednesday evening to 6.30am the following morning. We start off with a votive high mass of Corpus Christi, and finish off with a votive high mass of the Sacred Heart, with a procession of the Sacrament around the church. This year I was unable to make the all night vigil as I was too tired, but I managed to fit in a few hours before the sacrament, and take some pictures:

ADORO te devote, latens Deitas,
quae sub his figuris vere latitas:
tibi se cor meum totum subiicit,
quia te contemplans totum deficit.

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur,
sed auditu solo tuto creditur;
credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius:
nil hoc verbo Veritatis verius.

In cruce latebat sola Deitas,
at hic latet simul et humanitas;
ambo tamen credens atque confitens,
peto quod petivit latro paenitens.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor;
Deum tamen meum te confiteor;
fac me tibi semper magis credere,
in te spem habere, te diligere.

O memoriale mortis Domini!
panis vivus, vitam praestans homini!
praesta meae menti de te vivere
et te illi semper dulce sapere.

Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine,
me immundum munda tuo sanguine;
cuius una stilla salvum facere
totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio,
oro fiat illud quod tam sitio;
ut te revelata cernens facie,
visu sim beatus tuae gloriae. Amen.


Tonight we finish with high mass of the Sacred Heart.