Proper
From the vault of the evening sky, from the countryside beneath her gaze came the murmur of the mass intoned as she had heard it thousands of times before, in the voice of her father, who had explained the words to her when she was a child and stood at his knee: Then Sira Eirik sings the Præfatio when he turns toward the altar, and in Norwegian it means:
Truly it is right and just, proper and redemptive that we always and everywhere should thank Thee, Holy Lord, Almighty Father, eternal God. . . .
When she lifted her face from her hands, she saw Gaute coming up the hillside. Kristin sat quietly and waited until the boy stood before her; then she reached out to take his hand. There was grassy meadow all around and not a single place to hide anywhere near the rock where she sat.
“How have you carried out your father’s errand, my son?” she asked him softly. (Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, Kindle Edition, loc 11196)
Seven hundred years later my children hear this same declaration as they enter into worship:
Truly it is proper and right that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to You, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting King, . . .
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