«NOCTE SURGENTES VIGILEMUS OMNES». Hymn of Matins, used from the third Sunday after Pentecost to September 27, of unknown authorship.
In the silence of the night, when all is still, the faithful are invited to praise the Lord in the meditation of the psalms and in the singing of hymns: a sweet alternation that keeps them awake when their limbs, weary from the day’s labor, long for rest. This renunciation or limitation of rest to devote oneself to prayer will merit entry into the eternal light.
Bibl.: G. B. Belli, Gli inni del Breviario tradotti, Rome 1856, pp. 6-7; S. G. Pimont, Les hymnes du Breviare romain, I, Paris 1874, pp. 39-47.