1. Background and text

2. References

Sacra jam splendent is a Roman Catholic hymn for Matins on the Feast of the Holy Family.

Background and text

The Holy See instituted the Feast in 1893, raising it to the rank of duplex majus (Greater Double) and assigning it to the third Sunday after Epiphany. Since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, it is celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas.

Pope Leo XIII composed the three hymns (Vespers, Matins, Lauds) of the Breviary. The hymn for Matins contains nine Sapphic stanzas of the classical type of the first stanza:

The hymns for Vespers (O Lux Beata Caelitum) and Lauds (O Gente Felix Hospita) are in classical dimeter iambics, four-lined stanzas, of which the Vespers hymn contains six and the Lauds hymn seven exclusive of the usual Marian doxology (“Jesu tibi sit gloria...”).

All three hymns are replete with spiritual unction, graceful expression, and classical dignity of form. They reflect the sentiments of Leo XIII in his letter establishing a pious association in honour of the Holy Family and in his encyclical Rerum novarum, which discusses the condition of workers.

References

• Campaign in south-west France (1814)
• Campaign JFK
• Campaign Legal Center
• Campaign magazine
• Campaign Management Institute
• Campaign Manager
• Campaign medals
• Campaign of 1543
• Campaign of 1856–1857
• Campaign of 1856–57
• Campaign of Chios
• Campaign of Danture
• Campaign of Danture (1594)
• Campaign of France (Napoleonic Wars)
• Campaign of Grodno
• Campaign of Guipúzcoa
• Campaign of harassment
• Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda
• Campaign of Sucre in Upper Peru
• Campaign of the Hills
• Campaign of the Mallians
• Campaign Reform Act of 2002
• Campaigns against corporal punishment in the United States
• Campaigns against Minyue
• Campaigns against the Western Turks