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Summary of comments of this office by Dom Schuster, in his work L'année liturgique.
In today's Mass, the place of honor is reserved for Psalm 90, the very psalm quoted by Christ in answer to Satan the tempter. We will repeat it for the introït, the gradual, the offertory, and the communion, as if protesting and atoning for the temerarious suggestion. On the other hand, Psalm 90 expresses so well the feelings of the soul which comes back to God through penance and places in him all its confidence, that the Church made it the quadragesimal chant par excellence.
The Introït begins by expressing the magnificent promises made by God to him who has recourse to Him: "He shall call upon Me, and I will hear him; I will deliver him, and glorify him; I will fill him with length of days."
The Gradual responsory announces, in honor of Jesus, the homage that all the angels owe to the Caput hominum et Angelorum, and which Satan will precisely take as a motive to tempt him in the Gospel we will soon read: "God hath given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."
The Tract, and this goes without saying, is formed from Psalm 90: "He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven. He shall say to the Lord, Thou art my protector and my refuge: my God, in Him will I trust. For He hath deliverd me from the nare of the hunters, and from the sharp word. He will overshadow thee with His shoulders, and under His wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. Of the arrow that flieth in the day; of the business that walketh about in the dark: of ruin and the noonday devil. A thousand shall fall at thy sind, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shal ot come ingh to thee. For He hath given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot afainst a stone. Thous shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. Because he hath hoped in Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he hath known My name; he shall call upon me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation. I will deliver him, and I will glorify him: I will fill him with length of days, and I will show him My salvation."
It must be noted that, originally, the gradual and the tract were in two distinct places, i.e. after the first and after the second readings from Scripture, but they also were of a completely different kind of melodic psalmody. The tract of today is one of the rare extant examples of the extension that this chant had at the beginning when it ordinarily consisted of an entire psalm.
Here is the Offertory psalm: "The Lord will overshadow thee with his shoulders, and under His wings thou shalt trust: His truth shall compass thee with a shield."
The Communion antiphon is the same as that of the offertory.
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