Prayer
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven
(A. and M. 298; S.P. 623; C.H. 21, omitting v. 4: Tune, Praise my soul)
Interlude: 'Alexamenos worships his
God'
Prayers; the Prayer of St. Richard; the Lord's Prayer
At the name of Jesus (A. and M. 306, vv. 1, 5. 6; S.P. 392, w. 1, 4, 5; C.H. 178, vv. 1. 3. 4: Tune, Evelyns)
Blessing
Some years ago there was discovered, on a wall in the Palace of the Caesars in Rome, a crude picture probably scribbled by a slave-boy more than 1,700 years ago. It represents a man with the head of an ass, crucified on a Roman Cross, being worshipped by a young slave-boy. The inscription, roughly scrawled in Greek, is ' Alexamenos worships his God.' This caricature was obviously intended as an insult to the early Christians and the Interlude today is an attempt to reconstruct the sort of story that must lie behind it.