«AETERNE RECTOR SIDERUM». – Hymn of the Roman Breviary for Lauds on the feast of the Guardian Angels (2 Oct.). Its author is St. Robert Bellarmine, who unfolds in it his simple, candid, and measured manner of speaking and writing. The prayer that rises to God, creator and provident preserver of all things (stanza 1), asks, from the very break of dawn, that the Guardian Angels to whom we are entrusted preserve us from every danger of soul and body (stanzas 2–3); they protect us against the snares of the devil, of the passions, and of the world, and keep us in peace by keeping wars and famines far from our borders. This last plea recalls the author’s own times, troubled by the threats of the Turks, by religious wars, and by plagues.
BIBL.: L. Venturi, Gli Inni della Chiesa tradotti e commentati, 3rd ed., Florence 1880, pp. 318–22; K. Kastner, Praktischer Brevior-Kommentar, II, Breslau 1924, p. 266; C. Albin, La poésie du Bréviaire, Lyons n.d., pp. 361–64; A. Mirra, Gli Inni del Breviario romano per i Licei filosofici e per il clero, Naples 1947, pp. 232–33.