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. vv. 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 boy. The inscription, roughly scrawled in Greek, is ' Alexamenos worships his God.' This caricature was obviously intended as an insult to the early Christians. The interlude today is an attempt to reconstruct the-sort of story that must lie behind it.