About this website

Preface

I made this Prayers in English and Latin website as a resource and aid to devotion for English-speaking Catholics who wish to pray traditional Christian prayers in Latin. But if you are not such a person, please feel free to enjoy the site anyway. Of course this is not the only, nor the largest, Latin prayer website available, but I built in unique features — particularly in the typography — which I believe many readers will find welcome.

My guiding principles were twofold. First, to present the prayers with all due love and respect; this includes strict attention to their correctness, as well as a simple clutter-free design so their inherent beauty is manifest. And second, to let each individual reader choose the presentation most agreeable to him.

It is not my hope that people should say, “This website is wonderful.” I rather hope they shall say, “This website is useful; God is wonderful!”

— Sean Gleeson

Contact

If you would like to contact the maker of this website, especially to point out any errors it may contain or to suggest a prayer for inclusion, please email Sean Gleeson at sean@gleeson.us.

Technical notes

This site makes use of some pretty advanced HTML and CSS features, including audio elements, as well as embedded fonts and other typographic niceties. If your Web browser is an older version, it may not display the site correctly. For example, look at the line of text below.

Factórem cæli et terræ

Here is what you should be observing in that line:

It says Factorem caeli et terrae.
It is in a gothic-style typeface, like a medieval manuscript.
There is an accent mark above the ‘o’ in Factorem.
The “ae” characters in caeli and terrae are joined into a single combined character, or ligature.
If you hover your mouse cursor over that line for a second, an English translation (“Maker of heaven and earth”) appears.
And in the box below, you should see a little audio player, with a play button and a volume control. This will play the sound of those same four words (Factórem cæli et terræ) being spoken.

If you are not observing all of these features, then you would benefit from updating your browser to the latest version, not just for reading this site, but for enjoying many others as well.

Preferences

At the bottom of every page is a set of “preferences” options. These allow you to control how the prayers are rendered on your computer. (You must have JavaScript and cookies enabled on your browser to use the preferences.)

font: The “font” menu lets you choose one of four typefaces for the prayers: gothic, roman, sans, or uncial. The roman and sans may be easier to read, but you might prefer the more beautiful and historic gothic or uncial styles.
illuminated: With the “illuminated” option checked, prayers are shown with a large ornate initial captial letter, and a decorative border down the left edge.
ligatures: “Ligatures” are combinations of two (or more) letters into a single glyph, such as Æ for AE, and œ for oe. If you would prefer not to see ligatures in the prayers, simply uncheck the box.
accents: This site follows the ecclesial Latin convention of using accent marks. Any Latin word of three or more syllables will have an accent mark on the stressed vowel, as in Symbólum Apostolórum. Some readers may not like accents in their Latin. Those readers may turn off accents with this option.
letter J: The letter J did not exist in classical Latin (that’s why the inscription on the Holy Cross said INRI rather than JNRJ), but is used in ecclesial Latin, to distinguish the consonant J from the vowel I. If you would prefer that the words Jesum, judicáre, and cujus should instead appear as Iesum, iudicáre, and cuius, then you should uncheck this option.

Credits and copyright

The prayers were all composed hundreds of years ago by various authors, and handed down through the Church by the Holy Ghost. They are in the public domain.

Spoken audio recordings of several of the Latin prayers come from the Boston Catholic Journal, which owns the copyright on them, but has granted free license for their reproduction and distribution.

Chanted audio recordings are provided by St. Benedict’s Monastery of São Paulo, Brazil.

The embedded fonts I used are all freely available for public use. You do not need to download or install these fonts to see them on this site, because I embedded them. But if you want to use them for other projects, you can download them yourself at dafont.com. The illuminated initial capitals are Goudy Initialen. The gothic font I used is Moderne Fraktur. And the uncial font is Livingstone.