Benedicite
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): (n.) An exclamation corresponding to Bless you !.
(2): (n.) A canticle (the Latin version of which begins with this word) which may be used in the order for morning prayer in the Church of England. It is taken from an apocryphal addition to the third chapter of Daniel.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
or "the song of the three Hebrew children," is a canticle appointed by the rubric of the Church of England to be said or sung at the morning service, instead of the hymn Te Deum, whenever the minister may think fit. It is a paraphrase of the forty-eighth Psalm. In the Book of Common Prayer published under the sanction of Edward VI, it was ordered that the Te Deum should be said daily throughout the year, except in Lent, when the Benedicite was to be used. The minister had no choice according to this appointment; but in the subsequent revision of the Prayer Book, the choice was left to the option of the minister to read the Te Deum or the Benedicite. This hymn was sung as early as the 3d century. Chrysostom speaks of it as sung in all places throughout the world. — Bingham, Orig. Eccles. bk. 14, ch. 11, § 6; Procter, On Common Prayer, p. 224.
(Bless ye) is part [ver. 35 to the middle of ver. 66] of the prayer of Azarias in the furnace, which occurs between the 23d and 24th verses of Daniel 3 in the Sept., but is not in the Hebrew. It is used in the lauds of the Western Church, both in the Gregorian, including the old English, and Monastic uses, among the psalms of lauds, on Sundays and festivals, immediately before Psalms 138-150. It usually has an antiphon of its own, though in some uses the psalms at lauds are all said under one antiphon. The antiphonal clause, "Praise him, and magnify him forever," is only said after the first and last verses. Gloria Patri is not said after it, as after other canticles.
In the Ambrosian lauds for Sundays and festivals, Benedicite occurs with an antiphon varying with the day, and preceded by a collect which varies only on Christmas-day and the Epiphany. During the octave of Easter Hallelujah is said after each verse.
Benedicite also occurs in the private thanksgiving of the priest after mass; in the Roman office in full; in the Sarum the last few verses only.
In the Mozarabic breviary this canticle is found in the lauds for Sundays and festivals in a somewhat different form, with a special antiphon, and is called Benedicteus. It begins at ver. 29; the antiphonal clause is omitted altogether till the end; and the opening words of the Benedicite proper are never repeated after their first occurrence.
In the offices of the Greek Church this canticle is the eighth of the nine "Odes" appointed at lauds. The antiphonal clause is said after every verse, and a supplementary verse is added at the end. This canticle is sometimes called from the nature of its contents the Benedictio, in the same way as the last three psalms of the Psalter are known as the Laudes.
