Aberdeen Breviary, summer part (Blew, 1854) — office of St Marnan (Manir), confessor and pontiff, followed by the beginning of the office of St Thomas the Apostle.

[End of the preceding prayer:] … of the blessed Manir your confessor and pontiff we may be able with you, who are the way, the truth and the life, to rest with the same in heaven and live for ever. Through the Lord. Commemoration of the Advent and of Saint Mary.

At Matins, nine lessons. Lesson 1.

When the Catholic faith had been received by the Scots, certain of idolatry and superstition among them — whom they call “the forest-dwellers” [silvestres], who lived and conversed among the woods, rocks and desert places — lurked long after, on account of the diversity of tongue of the said nation, among whom the teachers of Christ were less learned and expert in preaching and teaching. To remove which the blessed Manir, the excellent pontiff, most skilled in either tongue and speech, came of his own accord by divine admonition; and though they were fierce, untamed and undisciplined, fearing their threats not at all he shrank not to approach them. And when… Lesson 2.

Now when he preached to them the word of God, and instituted for them another rite and manner of living in Christ, they rebuked him with threatening words, deriding and blaspheming; nor is it to be wondered that, accustomed from the beginning to such superstitions in the primitive church, it compelled them to adhere to them and inclined them to fear; for they received a rite new and unheard of among them. For, as the blessed Augustine says, “Custom which helps in use troubles by novelty” — how the Catholic faith in its beginning impressed their minds… Lesson 3.

Therefore the blessed Manir, with perplexity, anxiety and misery for the love of Christ, meditating the most certain sign of the passion, with all patience, humility and piety and most patiently sustained for the faith of Christ which he had preached, offered himself prepared for either — either at once to die or to be condemned with them to perpetual exile; therefore his name is divinely expounded: Manir — said from “remaining in the country” [a rure manendo], or from “the threats of evil men”, being unconquered, most gloriously overcoming the powers of the devil. And when… Lesson 4.

For he sought not gold, riches, altars or furniture while he desired to labour in this world to save men’s souls; but destitute, scattered by all the ends and dominions of kings, he disposed and breathed his soul above all things to gain for Christ the souls of lost men, not seeking the things of the world but the love of God — for the love and charity of Christ overcomes all audacity in adversities, and makes a pusillanimous and vile man magnanimous and strenuous to suffer voluntary death for him; which blessed Manir, whose feast we celebrate today, we deservedly call, whom we set as a benign propitiator with God for our help. And when, Lord, have mercy upon us. Lesson 5.

His sublime deeds and worthy miracles made manifest to us on earth show, without doubt, that the gentle, holy, pious man dear to God is in heaven; his daily preaching and the frequent instruction of unbelieving men, baptizing them and confirming them in the faith of Christ — and the places which they venerated and worshipped they drew out and impelled; and whereas at the beginning no basilica of God had been built or dedicated among those mountain-dwellers, he built a new church in honour of almighty God, that he might propagate there the faith of Christ which he had preached, that those rude men might receive the ecclesiastical sacraments. And it was worthy of admiration that they called the house of God consecrated a ‘church’. Lesson 6.

But the blessed Manir, a most modest man, consecrated to God his living and the place and the father; that by his preaching he might make the sons of perdition sons of God through the grace of adoption given to him — he suffered very many molestations in continual afflictions and assiduous prayers, so that, unless he had been strengthened by the providence of God, he could not have been borne, unless that hope alone had availed: that unless a man strive lawfully he shall not receive the palm of victory in the end. But at length, the same being confirmed in the faith and various miracles being sent from heaven through the same man of God, on the fifteenth of the Kalends of January [18 December] he passed to Christ, and in the church of God there he is worshipped and venerated to this day.

The last three lessons are of the Common of one confessor and pontiff, with the rest of the service of the same; with commemoration of the Advent or of Saint Mary.

Of Saint Thomas the apostle, at Vespers. Antiphon: “Be strong in war.” Psalm ferial. Chapter: “I have not…” Verse: “Whose foundations…” Hymn: “O Thomas, O bishop, having traversed the lands; by those holy wounds we beseech you, which wiped out all the crimes of the world: wipe away our guilt by your prayers.” Verse: “A new hope.” Verse: “In all the earth.” Antiphon: “O Thomas, who did deserve to touch the Lord, we beseech you by your prayers, most high; succour us miserable, lest we be condemned with the impious in the advent of the judge.” Psalm: Magnificat.

Prayer: “Grant us, we beseech you, O Lord God, so to worship the solemnities of your blessed apostle Thomas that we may ever be relieved by his patronages and be sustained by equal devotion of faith. Through the Lord. Commemoration of the Advent and of Saint Mary, if this feast falls on…”