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The Prioress had been given grace and strength to choose the harder part, believing the harder part to be, in very deed, God's will for her. And, as she laid her head at last upon the pillow, a prayer from the Gregorian Sacramentary slipped into her mind, calming her to sleep, with its message of overruling power and eternal peace.
Then, flinging her cloak upon the ground, and a silk covering over the book, she sank down, stretched her weary limbs upon the cloak and laid her head on the Sacramentary, trusting that some of the many sacred prayers therein contained would pass into her mind while she slept. Yet still her spirit cried: "A sign, a sign! However slight, however small; a sign mine own heart can understand."
Also, open upon the table, lay the Gregorian Sacramentary, and near to it strips of parchment upon which the Prioress had copied two of those ancient prayers, appending to each a careful translation. These are the sixth century prayers which the Prioress had found comfort in copying and translating, during the long hours of her vigil.
So, remembering his example, the Prioress went to her table, and shutting the clasps of her treasured Gregorian Sacramentary, placed it on the floor before the shrine of the Virgin.
It would appear however from the 20th canon of the first council of Toledo that anciently chrism could be blessed at any time; and hence Benedict XIV is of opinion, that the custom of blessing it only on holy Thursday began about the seventh century; for it is mentioned in the Sacramentary of S. Gregory, in the old Ordo Romanus, and in other works written after that period.
The robin sang. Our Lady smiled. The Babe on her knees looked merry. The Prioress lay watching, not daring to move; her head resting on the Sacramentary. Then into her mind there came the suggestion of a test a sign. "If he fly around the chamber," she whispered, "my place is here. But if he fly straight out into the open, then doth our blessèd Lady bid me also to arise and go."
This reservation is mentioned also in the Gregorian sacramentary, without any mention of the sacred blood, since it might be spilt.
"This prayer might suffice," she said, "if our hearts were truly honest, if our wills were ever yielded. But, alas, our hearts are deceitful above all things, and our wills are apt to turn traitor to our good intentions. "Therefore I have found for you, in the Gregorian Sacramentary, another prayer less well-known, yet much more ancient, written over six hundred years ago.
Then, in that darkest hour before the dawn, she had opened the heavy clasps of an even older volume, and copied a short prayer from the Gelasian Sacramentary, under date A.D. 492. Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord, and my Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of Thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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