RATS IN THE RECTORY! Of priests and rodents

I posted about the issue of the Hamster on the sidebar (yes, I actually wrote that sentence).

Now I read about another priest with a rodent problem: rats in the rectory (yes, I wrote that too and I can already hear the arm-chair comedians around the planet revving up).

Over at the blog southern orders read about the plague of rats, yes, in the rectory.

At that blog, Father Allan McDonald wrote:

I want to know if there is an exorcism prayer for rats!

Why, yes!  Fr. McDonald, there is indeed a deprecatory prayer against rats.

Father, this is your chance to becoming even more familiar with the glory and utility of the uneviscerated Roman Rite.

In the meantime, read THIS.

You can find the deprecatory prayer against rats and other vermin in the pre-Conciliar Rituale Romanum, which is in English on the site of Sancta Missa.  The prayer is in Titulus IX – Caput IX – No. 27. Benedictio Deprecatoria contra mures, locustas, bruchos, vermes, et alia animalia nociva.

I think you should use the LATIN because Latin is the language most hated by rats, both those with Roman collars and those who only have fur.

DEPRECATORY BLESSING AGAINST PESTS

(mice and rats, locusts, worms, etc.)

The priest vests in surplice and purple stole, and coming to the field or place infested with these creatures, says:

Antiphon: Arise, Lord, help us; and deliver us for your kindness’ sake.

Ps 43.1: O God, our ears have heard, our fathers have declared to us.

All: Glory be to the Father.
P: As it was in the beginning.

All Ant.: Arise, Lord, help us; and deliver us for your kindness’ sake.

P: Our help is in the name of the Lord.
All: Who made heaven and earth.

P: Lord, heed my prayer.

All: And let my cry be heard by you.
P: The Lord be with you.

All: May He also be with you.

Let us pray.

We entreat you, Lord, be pleased to hear our prayers; and even though we rightly deserve, on account of our sins, this plague of mice (or locusts, worms, etc. Insert rats, here… or liberals, if it is a rectory.  No, wait.  This is a rectory.  Make that, chancery.), yet mercifully deliver us for your kindness’ sake. Let this plague be expelled by your power, and our land and fields be left fertile, so that all it produces redound to your glory and serve our necessities; through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.
Let us pray.

Almighty everlasting God, the donor of all good things, and the most merciful pardoner of our sins; before whom all creatures bow down in adoration, those in heaven, on earth, and below the earth; preserve us sinners by your might, that whatever we undertake with trust in your protection may meet with success by your grace. And now as we utter a curse on these noxious pests, may they be cursed by you; as we seek to destroy them, may they be destroyed by you; as we seek to exterminate them, may they be exterminated by you; so that delivered from this plague by your goodness, we may freely offer thanks to your majesty; through Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.
Exorcism

I cast out you noxious vermin, by God the Father almighty, by Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, and by the Holy Spirit. May you speedily be banished from our land and fields, [rectories, … chanceries, …] lingering here no longer, but passing on to places where you can do no harm. In the name of the almighty God and the entire heavenly court, as well as in the name of the holy Church of God, we pronounce a curse on you, that wherever you go you may be cursed, decreasing from day to day until you are obliterated. Let no remnant of you remain anywhere, except what might be necessary for the welfare and use of mankind. Be pleased to grant our request, you who are coming to judge both the living and the dead and the world by fire.

All: Amen.

The places infested are sprinkled with holy water.

UPDATE: 1 Aug 2131 GMT:

From the blog and rectory having the rat problem.

Thanks Fr. Z, our parochial vicar, Fr. Justin Ferguson and I will wear copes and birettas for this rite of exorcism, use volumes holy water and fumigate with incense the entire house!