Aberdeen Breviary, winter part (Edinburgh: Chepman & Myllar, 1509-10). Latin office text, extracted from the proprium sanctorum. Contains the end of a verse office; the complete office of St Merinus (Mirin) of Paisley; and the office of St Ninian (16 September) through Lauds.

[End of the preceding verse office:] … believe the perverse nations of the Gentiles. These works foregoing… The unbelieving race, the wretched people of Anna… Consider the stars of Anna… The child-bearing of Anna. Amen.

“Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the sighs of your suppliants, and the prayers of those who trust in you, that by the intercession of your pontiff Merinus we may be able to escape the sentence of sinners. Through the Lord.” At Matins, nine lessons. Lesson 1.

Inspired by the divine Spirit, he was committed by his parents to be nurtured in the monastery of Bangor in the province of the Irish; and there he was not only instructed in the perfection of letters, but in all moral knowledge and the learning of humility and chastity, diligently formed in the other virtues; and whatever pertained to the doctrine of eternal salvation, he committed to memory with the desire of his whole heart, and kept it growing. Lesson 2.

Therefore, his age being mature, despising his father’s riches, earthly possessions and the other vain and transitory things of the world, he chose to bear the yoke of the Lord from his infancy; and in the monastery of Bangor he sought and received the habit of holy religion from Saint Comgall the abbot. Not long after, when the lord of that monastery died, the said Comgall and his brethren chose him — though unwilling — to be prior. The office of which government being undertaken, he rebuked the brethren with the love of charity rather than with the severity of wrath; and those whom he corrected with outward chastisement he diligently loved. Lesson 3.

Now at a certain time a man of the greatest sanctity, Onianus, bishop of Mabbilensis, coming to the monastery of Bangor, came to lodge with Saint Comgall the abbot, and was kindly received by the blessed Merinus the prior; and he asked for a draught of milk for the quality of his softer body. Now in that monastery there was no milk. Whereupon the cellarer at the bidding of the blessed Merinus, in the vessels of the cellars, found a vessel filled with the best milk by the nod of the same, and presented it to the blessed Onianus; and then, all sitting down in order, he distributed it to the rest. And when… Lesson 4.

Afterwards Merinus came to the castle of a certain king of Ireland, for the sake of confirming the Catholic faith; where at that time the wife of the said king, pregnant and near to her delivery, was wearied with diverse straits and pains. But the king, hearing of the coming of the said Merinus, suffered him not to enter his castle, nor conferred any honour on Merinus, but utterly despised him; which being heard, the blessed Merinus besought God that the accursed king might suffer the pressures and straits of his wife’s child-bearing. And that which he asked of the Lord he at once suffered; so much that for three days and as many nights he ceased not to cry out before all the good men of his kingdom. Now the king, seeing that he was confounded of God ignominiously and that there was no remedy coming for him, went to the dwelling of Saint Merinus and granted him most willingly all things before sought. Whereupon Saint Merinus by his holy prayers delivered the king from all the pressures. And when… Lesson 5.

Now at a certain time the blessed Merinus, tarrying in his little hut beyond the wonted hour, a certain brother who ministered to him went to visit him; and when he came to the little hut he at once stood amazed. For he saw through the chinks and the holes light sent forth from heaven. Now the blessed Merinus that night came not to his brethren singing in the church in the wonted manner. But when he had divinely known that his brother had seen so many miracles, in the morning he called him apart and said to him that the things he had seen in the night past he should tell to no man in his life, and that he should not presume to approach his little hut meanwhile. Lesson 6.

On the same day, the brethren of Saint Merinus labouring near Vallis Colpdathe, one of them wearied beyond measure with labour and thirst fell down in the land beside him, and lay as one dead from midday until the ninth hour. But Saint Merinus, sorrowing most vehemently for his brother that he should die by so sudden and unlooked-for a death, prayed to the Lord; and he, breathing upon him… at length filled with health and sanctity he made him whole by the Lord. In honour of which the said church is dedicated to God. The rest all of the Common of one confessor and pontiff, with the exposition of the Gospel of the same.

In the feast of our glorious Saint Ninian, bishop and confessor, on the greater day.

Antiphon: “He sounded the solemnities of Ninian with the holy song, the trumpet of the voice with the exultation of the heart; that the word may please equally by the tongue, so let him render praise to God and rewards.” Psalm: Laudate pueri. Antiphon: “He put to flight the darkness of the painters of the flesh; the day of life admonishing, despising the world he made glad his people, striving toward heavenly things.” Psalm: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes. Antiphon: “He passed through life, preserving the province; the previous sanctity… the cup of the Lord, sweet in the fatherland.” Psalm: Lauda anima. Antiphon: “you ought to rejoice for so great a patron, Alba [Scotland], secure, safe, while life keeps the way of life.” Psalm: Laudate Dominum quoniam bonus. Antiphon: “you do pass to the heavens today; placed in the delights, cause us to migrate there daily by your prayers.” Psalm: Lauda Ierusalem. Hymn of one confessor. Verse: “The shepherd watched the army of God, guarding the flock; who bruised the unhappy soul of the thief; he raised the dead.”

“He whom the dead body quickened, Paulinus raised again, and Paulus. With a notable deed he bore the warfare for the holy God and the people. Prayer…” Versicle: “you did require the head of the old man, Ninian by grace; you have given the reward. The woman conceived with seed; the boy shone bright in childhood; the man, a lamp of grace, gave the shepherd unhurt. He subdued the Britons with virtues; the troops of diverse peoples he brought to heavenly things, the region of the Niduarian Picts. Vengeance struck the sick man who had been Belial; he is healed, and pious devotion rendered him gentle. He loosed him from the bonds of death whom the bull had gored; from the jaws of death he freed the man carried off by the rapids. To the sick he gave himself in cure; many cares by miracles; to God acceptable, blessed in beholding God. Let the memory of Ninian’s victory defend us, enemies overcome, safe deeds in all things. Amen.”

Verse: “He loved him.” Antiphon: “The royal stock which flourished in life brought forth offspring; the father begot a patron, Ninian, by whom the world was made bright; here as a herald he shone with signs; he taught the Britons the faith of God.” Verse: “The just.”

Prayer: “O God, who did dedicate to us this day honourable by the festivity of the blessed Ninian your confessor and pontiff: grant propitiously that by his teaching we may be enlightened by the light of your truth, and by his intercession we may attain to the joys of the heavenly life. Through the Lord.”

Then a commemoration of the Octave of the Nativity of blessed Mary; and of the martyrs Eufemia and her companions privately. Prayer: “We beseech you, O Lord, prosper our prayers with exultation, that we may follow the gifts of the faith of those whose day of passion we yearly recall with devotion.”

At Matins. Invitatory: “Let praise be poured forth to Ninian; let the Lord be praised.” Psalm: Venite. Hymn: “O Christ, who are…”

In the first nocturn, antiphon: “Ninian, set in tender years, breathed after the supernal manners, imbued.” Psalm: Beatus vir. Antiphon: “Seeking Rome for the sake of doctrine, he stayed; but for the merits of his life he returned a prelate.” Psalm: Quare fremuerunt. Antiphon: “Made legate of the faith to the Britons, he diligently repressed his kinsfolk in the faith.” Psalm: Domine quid. Verse: “He loved him.” Lesson 1.

“The glorious deeds of Saint Ninian, the most worthy authority commends; whom the holy patriarch Abraham, the father of the multitude of nations and the prince of faith, predestined before the secular times, proved by such an oracle first to have instituted: ‘Go forth out of your country and from your kindred and from the house of your father, and come into the land which I shall show you, and I will make you to grow into a great nation.’” “Ninian the noble shone as a boy in sacrifices; and so he presented himself to the court of the fatherland from which the prelate had departed. And by the conjecture of the spirit he shone with the habit of Martin by his merits.” “The most blessed Ninian.” Lesson 2.

“Leaving his country and the house of his father, he learned in a strange land that he might be able to teach in his own; set by the Lord over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to destroy, to plant and to build. Now of this most blessed man the sacred beginnings of his life and conversation, and the marks of his sanctity, the dignity of his office and the fruit of his ministry — the venerable Bede in the Ecclesiastical History of his people commends in very few words, writing thus of him: ‘The bishop returned; let the flock of the sheep applaud; the people obeyed; the devil fled; the faith of the believers is referred. Error yielded; the miracle grew.’” Verse: “The devastated suggestion of the demons believed through him in the Lord. It yielded.”

Lesson 3.

“In the year from the Incarnation five hundred and sixty-five, at which time Justin the Younger received the governance of the Roman Empire after Justinian, there came from Ireland a priest and abbot, notable in habit and life of a monk, named Columba, to preach the word of God in the northern province of the Picts, that is by the mountains which divide… by the long and narrow…” “By the admonitions of God’s word he healed the blind who had been vexed by pain of the head; but the man who had been blinded, the firm light restored by the divine power.” Verse: “There is a twofold cure: the illumination of the heart and of the body.”

In the second nocturn. Antiphon: “The flesh of the man… the eyes of the king, made whole by the prelate above the molested.” Psalm: Cum invocarem. Antiphon: “The prelate, pleased, rendered back the lost light by the penance of the stricken king, believing in Christ reborn.” Psalm: Verba mea. Antiphon: “The crime of the wicked laid open by the unsounding mouth; the confusion of the Lord is loosed, the corrupter.” Psalm: Domine Deus. Lesson 4.

“Moreover the Southern Picts, who dwell on this side of the mountains seated within them, had long before abandoned the error of idolatry and received the faith of truth by the preaching of the word of God by Ninian the bishop, a most reverend and holy man of the nation of the Britons; and he was at Rome regularly instructed in the faith and mysteries of the truth.” Verse: “The mother, burdened with child, at length straitened in her labour began to accuse the father of bringing forth a bastard, so thinking to excuse herself of the crime committed. But the wedding laid open the hidden with the unsounding; and in the unsounding speech the manhood appeared; he loosed the father’s strength; the wondrous deed revealed him.”

Lesson 5.

“Whose episcopal see at the church named for Saint Martin the bishop, notable, where he himself also with many other saints rests in the body; which place is called by the vulgar “Ad Candidam Casam” [at the White House], because he built a church of stone there in a manner unaccustomed among the Britons.” Verse: “The holy man sitting in the refectory feeding his brethren by a miracle called the gardener; at once bidding the herbs be brought from the garden he produced the herb with the seed, then made thanks to God the Lord. At the bidding of Ninian the mind of the gardener wondered; yet nothing of vain — the will of the saint, he sowed that same day; the earth brought forth the fruit, the pontiff commanding. The herb he produced with the seed then made.”

Lesson 6.

“Therefore by the testimony of so many faithful men we have learned the beginnings of this man; who, being sprung of the nation of the Britons, was instructed in the rule of the faith in the holy Roman church, and we have learned the office which he sustained as bishop and preacher of the word of God, and the fruit of his labour — which the Southern Picts by his industry he proved to be converted from idolatry to the true faith. We have learned also his end, who in the church of Saint Martin with many saints professes to rest, and in the present is dedicated in his honour.” Verse: “The raging bull attacks the horn; the staff of the brittle man yields; broken, the life of the… is scattered. Again restored divine and holy. In the devious wandering the robbers fly; in the town they are bound by staves. Again… Glory… Again.”

In the third nocturn. Antiphon: “The little boy leaves his father by the fear which the staff of the enemy brought to his mouth.” Psalm: Domine quis habitat. Antiphon: “The wood flowering dry became a sign to all; the spring breaking forth proved the servant worthy of God.” Psalm: Domine in virtute. Antiphon: “To Ninian all elements obey: fire, air, water, drink and rivers.” Psalm: Domini est terra. Verse: “The just.”

Gospel: “A certain man going into a far country.” And the rest. Homily of the blessed Bede the priest:

“Concerning the life and miracles of Saint Ninian, whoever he may be, briefly indeed as the tenour of the history demanded, he has touched so much; the book which is written barbarically of his life and miracles may be sought by the more diligent. Which book, from the testimony of him, not departing at all from the foundation, only how such beginnings he took, how such fruit he merited, how he attained so laudable an end, he has written in the manner of a history.”

Verse: “The guilty disciple, fearing the rod, fled by flight, a little boy; the staff of the master is secretly left, by which the trembling clergy are saved. The entrance lies open through many holes; the incursion of the rivers is divinely split.”

Lesson 8.

“The island therefore which… from the holy name it received; in his own nation, a family not ignoble, the blessed Ninian was sprung; in the region which lies in the western parts of the same island, where the ocean, stretching as it were in a far arm, making two angles on each side, now divides the kingdoms of the Scots and the English; constituted until the latest times of the Scots had its own king, as is proved not only by the faith of historians but also by undoubted memory.” Verse: “And the man sets out with a companion; thus a place of psalmody is chosen; a dark cloud… is overshadowed; a light poured out is emitted… Before, the ancient of the saints is confined; the way hence is hedged about… no violence of clouds; nor of the roofed… nor of the letters of the saint is harmed.”

“Above the faith of him so great… that by such merits he might be deemed worthy; through whom the things that were wanting to the faith of those might be supplied; and the nation of another people, which knew not the sacraments of the faith, might be imbued with the mysteries of sacred religion. He in his very infancy, reborn in the wave of the sacred baptism, took the wedding-garment which, keeping immaculate, he presented shining before the eyes of Christ the Lord; and he deserved to have the Holy Spirit, the illuminator of the hearts which first he had cleansed, in the most holy manners of his sacred breast. For by his magisterial teaching, whatever is contrary to religion, whatever is opposed to chastity, whatever is contrary to good manners and the laws of truth — while yet a boy, but not in boyish fashion, he abhorred. But whatever was of the law, whatever of grace, whatever of honesty, whatever profitable to his neighbour, whatever pleasing to God, with a mind already old he ceased not to cultivate.”

Verse: “A man unseen is born; a horrible shape; his face transformed with grief; a wonder of wondrous form; his feet and arms deprived; Christ’s great works… To the tumulus of Ninian… he is led back safe to the universal. At the tomb of Ninian the number is brought; the title of praise restored to the sight…” Response: “The miracle of hospitality gives healing to the sick; the tumour yields, and the contagion of leprosy; life is restored to the dead and speech to the mute; to the blind light, to the lame their gait, and to the deaf hearing. The people rejoice, saved from shipwreck, and the barren woman with her son; the imprisoned are freed, the mad from the demon; the gout puts to flight, the fever, the falling sickness; the withered members are restored to their office. And the liberation proves the servant of God holy; the new restoration of the members, therefore let our assembly sing praises to Ninian; for they ask with heart what he, the pious judge, asked wholly. The guest returns…” Verse: “Pray for us, blessed Ninian.”

At Lauds, antiphons:

“Let us praise the highest Creator of all, who makes his confessor wondrous by signs.” Verse: “The Lord has reigned.” Antiphon: “Thirsting he came to the holy relics; by virtue he showed; he received the grace of salvation from God.” Psalm: Iubilate. Antiphon: “The light beating; the dead girl, light restored, comes now a little one.” Psalm: Deus Deus meus. Antiphon: “The deadly corruption which possessed the body was removed from the body by the heavenly powers.” Psalm: Benedicite. Antiphon: “By Ninian’s merits the dead are cured, the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute are healed.” Psalm: Laudate.

Hymn: “Come, joys of the blessed; let us give thanks for Ninian the pontiff; the angelic sceptres… Rejoice, crowd of the faithful, keeping the solemnity of the father, praising his proclamation, who gives his aids. In the paradise of the church, health and sweetness, he breathes the breath of spices, Ninian of the heavenly ones. Here Ninian arises; the wealth of the world being trodden down, he enters heaven a victor, with the troops of many people. And you, ruler of the Lothians, rule us your people; trampling down the demon, the world, the flesh, by justice.”

Antiphon: “O Christ, the Britons; O pure and pious care of the gracious father toward the simple; for none asks Ninian in vain — though you be complicit in sins and guilty — while the suppliants in the citadel of hope… the contrite of heart he looses, breaking the chains of the bound.” Psalm: Benedictus. Prayer as above. Commemoration of the martyrs. Antiphon: “Let us praise the Lord, the pious one.” Chapter of one confessor as above.

Verse: “We who are wrapped in the utmost bounds of vice, demented and unclean with the filths of offences, beseech you, Ninian, favourably upon the suppliants; that the king of the heavens, appeased by the prayers poured out by you, may bring us cleansed from sins among the citizens of heaven. Be you a pious patron to us, a good shepherd, mindful of the wretched who worship you; render us purged in heart from filth. Praise him, you heavenly ones. Amen.”

Hymn: “The crowd of the faithful sings with new hymns; it loves the heralds of praise of the pontiff Ninian. By whose doctrine and admonitions the people walk happily; converted from unlawful errors is healed; the rod of Moses and the staff of the prelate confirm the heavenly signs by the merits of Ninian. The rod divides the sea, giving leadership to the people; the waves of the sea are turned back, the staff ruling the ship. Water flowed from the stone, giving drink to the Hebrew people; the fount arose from the point of the staff, sending forth a rivulet. The dry legal rod brought forth leaves and flowers; by such a mighty virtue the staff of the ark had grown. The rain invaded the book while the thicket was empty; hanging it in the air, the drops of moisture… In the world he flourished with miracles of excellent praise; now he is…”