Prayer for a birthday

This prayer comes from a book of church prayers copied about AD 750, when East and West were still one Church. It thanks God for another year and asks for many more.

Picture: Peder Severin Krøyer, Hip, Hip, Hurrah! Artists’ Party at Skagen, 1888

Plain English

O God, the life of the faithful,Saviour and guardian of those who fear You,now that another year has passed,You have been pleased to bring Your servant (name)to this birthday.

Increase in them the grace of the Protector of life,and multiply their days with many years,so that, by Your favour,they may be carried through a happy lifeand be found worthy to reach the heights of heaven’s joy.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.Amen.

O God, the life of the faithful,Saviour and guardian of those who fear You,now that another year has passed,You have been pleased to bring me, Your servant,to this birthday.

Increase in me the grace of the Protector of life,and multiply my days with many years,so that, by Your favour,I may be carried through a happy lifeand be found worthy to reach the heights of heaven’s joy.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.Amen.

Traditional wording, 1857

O God, the Life of the faithful,the Saviour and Guardian of those that fear Thee,Who, after the expiration of a year,hast been pleased to bring Thy servant N.to this his natural birthday;

increase in him the grace of the Protector of life,and multiply his days with many years;that having, by Thy favour, been carried through a happy life,he may be enabled to attain the height of heavenly joys;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Latin, with William Bright’s 1857 translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: William Bright, Ancient Collects and Other Prayers, 1857.

When it is said

In the Gelasian Sacramentary the priest prays it after Communion, at a Mass for someone’s birthday.

Anyone may pray it for a son, a daughter or a friend on their birthday, or for themselves on their own birthday.

Where it comes from

No author known

Where does it come from?

The prayer comes from the Gelasian Sacramentary, a Latin book of the prayers a priest says at Mass. Its one manuscript was copied near Paris about the year 750, from older Roman prayers, and is kept in the Vatican Library. Only one older book of the Western Church’s services survives. Its name comes from Pope Gelasius, whom writers of the 800s credited with an old Roman book of Mass prayers.

The Cult of Saints, University of Oxford, record E07005; The Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson (1894), introduction

A Mass for a birthday

This is the last prayer of a whole Mass for someone’s birthday. Earlier in the same Mass the priest asks God to add years to the person’s life. He prays that for many years to come they may joyfully bring God the same birthday thanks, reach the old age they long for, and bless Him all the days of their life.

The Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson (1894), Book III, LIII

What the words mean

What is a “natural birthday”?

The Latin heading is “Oratio in Natale genuinum”, a prayer for someone’s own birthday. The same book uses “birthday” for a saint’s feast day, as with St Stephen’s day, and for the anniversary of a priest’s ordination. The day a person was born is set apart as the “natural birthday”, a phrase the translator William Bright kept in his English of 1857.

The Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson (1894); William Bright, Ancient Collects (1857), p. 94

In Latin

Deus, vita fidelium, timentium te salvator et custos,

qui famulum tuum N. ad hanc diem natalis sui genuini,

exemto anno, perducere dignatus es,

gratiam in eo vitae protectoris augmenta,

et dies eius annorum numerositate multiplica, ut te annuente,

per felicem provectus aetatem,

ad principatum caelestium gaudiorum pervenire mereatur. Per.

From the Gelasian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson (Oxford, 1894), on archive.org.

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