When it is said
It opens the Mass for asking humility, one of the Masses Alcuin set for Wednesdays.
It is short enough to pray each morning, or whenever you catch yourself wanting to look better than others.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
Who was Alcuin?
Alcuin was a deacon of the church of York, in England. At Parma in AD 781, the Frankish king Charlemagne invited him to his court. In AD 796 Alcuin was made abbot of St Martin’s at Tours, where he spent his last eight years.
Gerald Ellard, “Alcuin and Some Favored Votive Masses”, Theological Studies (1940)
A small Mass book
Alcuin put together a small book of Masses for himself and his friends. He took some of it from older books and wrote some himself, and the book was finished by AD 801. Its Mass for humility opens with an older Roman prayer from a Mass for a time of strife. In Alcuin’s book that prayer gains the line about the humility Christ showed.
Gerald Ellard, “Alcuin and Some Favored Votive Masses”, Theological Studies (1940); H. A. Wilson, The Gelasian Sacramentary (Oxford, 1894), page 278
The Scripture in it
Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Latin
Deus qui superbis resistis et gratiam praestas humilibus,
auge in nobis verae humilitatis virtutem,
cujus in se formam fidelibus unigenitus Filius tuus exhibuit,
ut nunquam indignationem tuam provocemus elati,
sed potius semper pietatis tuae capiamus dona subjecti.
Per eumdem.