Our Sources

Vigilemus

The shelf

Checked, not merely cited. Each of the 74 prayers, devotions and novenas is compared against a scan of the edition it names — not against whichever book happens to match best. 57 are all but identical to it and 14 match substantially. 3 score lower, and every text a number alone could not account for has been read by hand. The usual cause is the scan rather than the text: the 1889 Manual of Prayers sets the Nicene Creed in Latin and English parallel columns, and the scanner reads straight across them, so the two languages alternate line by line and no English phrase is left whole. That looks to a machine like missing text and is not. Where reading the page showed the wording genuinely differed, the citation was moved to the edition that matches: the 1910 Raccolta prints the Salve Regina as “in this vale of tears” against our “valley”, and gives the responsory of St. Anthony in Latin only. 2 texts are not on this shelf at all and are named below. Two limits worth stating plainly: this is a high similarity score against an OCR'd page scan, not proof of exact equality, and it does not cover the spiritual readings, which are cited to CCEL and New Advent — proofread transcriptions rather than scans.

Every text in Vigilemus comes from one of these books, and each links to the edition itself — a page scan for the prayer manuals, a proofread transcription for the patristic series — so any line in the app can be checked against the source it was taken from. Where a series runs to many volumes, the entry links the series and each text below carries its own volume and chapter.

Whole corpora

  • Holy Scripture — Douay-Rheims, Challoner RevisionProject Gutenberg #1581 — Transcribed by Dennis McCarthy and Tad Book. Every psalm and reading in the app resolves to this one text — the Little Office stores psalm NUMBERS only, so the psalmody cannot drift from Scripture. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
  • The Fathers on the day's Gospel — Catena AureaNewman's Oxford translation, 1841–45 — Matthew and Mark verified against CCEL's edition; CCEL hosts no Luke or John, so those two rest on the same transcription without a second witness. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.html
  • The Mass propers — the readings of the dayThe modern Roman Missal — The order of readings is Fr. Felix Just, S.J.'s compilation of the Ordo Lectionum Missae, used with the attribution his copyright page asks for; the readings themselves resolve to the bundled Douay-Rheims. The 1962 propers from Divinum Officium are still in the app bundle but are no longer served: the Missal setting was retired on 2026-09-17 and the app now follows the modern Missal for every reader. https://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/
  • The Rosarythe manuals above, and one modern document named as such — The fifteen traditional mysteries and the manner of reciting the Rosary are printed in these public-domain manuals, and each of the Rosary's prayers carries its own citation. The LUMINOUS MYSTERIES and the assignment of mysteries to weekdays are not: they come from Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002), and are named separately for that reason. https://archive.org/details/stalphonsuspraye00ligu
  • The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin MaryBenziger Brothers, 1915 — Checked string by string against the scan: 167 of 184 match at 80% or better, the shortfall being OCR damage and rubrics our data merges onto one line. https://archive.org/details/littleofficeofbl00newy

On no shelf, and why

These are not a backlog. Each one has been looked for, and there is a reason it cannot be shown to you in a pre-1929 printing. They are bundled anyway, deliberately, and this is the argument for doing so.

  • The Fatima Prayer (prayers)The decade prayer comes from the apparitions of 13 July 1917. We have found no printing of the prayer before 1929, and the English printings we know are of the 1940s, so there is no pre-1929 printing to cite — this is the one text on this page whose provenance cannot be closed by finding a better book. It is included because it is a short traditional formula in universal devotional use, prayed in this form throughout the Church and printed freely by everyone; and it is the only bundled text that is NOT claimed as public domain, carrying its own caveat wherever it appears in the app instead. Fátima apparitions, 13 July 1917 — a private revelation, the apparitions approved by the Bishop of Leiria in 1930; traditional decade prayer in universal devotional use. We have found no printing of it before 1929, in English or any other language; the English printings we know are of the 1940s.
  • Oración de Fátima (Spanish prayers)The Spanish decade prayer, on exactly the same footing as the English one above: the apparitions are of 1917, no pre-1929 printing exists in any language, and none will be found. It is given in the form in which it is universally prayed in Spanish, and like the English text it is NOT claimed as public domain — it carries the same caveat instead. Apariciones de Fátima, 13 de julio de 1917 — revelación privada, aprobadas por el obispo de Leiría en 1930; oración de las decenas en uso devocional universal. No hemos hallado ninguna impresión anterior a 1929 en ninguna lengua; las ediciones inglesas que conocemos son de los años cuarenta. Se recoge en la forma castellana de uso común, por la misma razón que el texto inglés: no hay edición que citar y nunca la habrá.
  • El Credo niceno (Spanish prayers)The 1819 Manual prints the Creed in its Ordinary of the Mass (pp. 52-54) with the Latin and the Spanish in parallel columns, and archive.org's OCR reads across both and interleaves a footnote, so no long Spanish phrase is contiguous. The same artefact as the English nicene-creed above. Manual del Cristiano, con los ejercicios de la más sólida piedad, por D. J. de T., 2.ª ed. (Madrid: Imprenta de D. Fermín Villalpando, 1819), «Ordinario de la Misa», «El Credo», pp. 52-54; dominio público. https://archive.org/details/manualdelcristia00unse — Transcrito de las imágenes de las páginas, con la ortografía del impreso. Se corrige una errata: «que hablo por los Profetas» → «que habló». Sustituye a un texto mexicano de 1878 que omitía «Padre» en el primer artículo.
  • Oración de Jesús (Spanish prayers)The prayer itself is ancient — hesychast, attested from around the fifth century and formalised in the Philokalia — but it reaches WESTERN print through Russian literature rather than through devotional manuals, so a Spanish devocionario is simply the wrong genre to search. The English text IS cited, to the Catholic Encyclopedia vol. XIII p. 188, which prints it because it sets out to describe Eastern practice; no Spanish work of that kind was found. Included on exactly the footing of es/fatima-prayer: a short traditional formula in universal devotional use, in the form in which it is commonly prayed in Spanish, NOT claimed as public domain and carrying its own caveat wherever it appears in the app. Oración tradicional de Oriente, en uso devocional universal. La oración es antigua, pero no hemos hallado ninguna impresión castellana anterior a 1929 que la dé como oración para rezar: la única aparición que hemos encontrado está en los Cuentos escogidos de Tolstói (1923), dentro de un relato. Se recoge en la forma castellana de uso común, en las mismas condiciones que la Oración de Fátima.

Not yet on the shelf

Listed rather than omitted: an unmentioned gap is exactly the defect this page exists to prevent.

  • Novena in Honour of the Seven Dolours (novenas)Sebastian of the Blessed Sacrament (Fr. Sebastian Keens), "Manual of Devotions in Honour of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary", London, 1868, pp. 208-214, "Novena in honour of the Seven Dolours" (headed "From the Spanish"). Public domain (pub. 1868). https://archive.org/details/ManualOfDevotionsInHonour
  • Oh sagrado convite (Spanish prayers)Ejercicios de piedad para uso de los discípulos de las escuelas pías, P. Carlos Lasalde (Madrid: A. Pérez Dubrull, 1891); dominio público.
  • Tantum Ergo (Spanish prayers)Manual del Cristiano, con los ejercicios de la más sólida piedad, por D. J. de T., 2.ª ed. (Madrid: Imprenta de D. Fermín Villalpando, 1819); dominio público. Traducción en verso del Pange Lingua de Santo Tomás de Aquino.
  • Venid, Espíritu Santo (Spanish prayers)Eucologio romano; devocionario completo, por el Dr. D. José Sayol y Echevarría, 6.ª ed. (Barcelona: Llorens hermanos, 1877), pp. 29-30; dominio público. Traducción de la época (trato de vos); no corresponde al texto litúrgico actual.
  • Rosary of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary (chaplets)Sebastian of the Blessed Sacrament (Fr. Sebastian Keens), "Manual of Devotions in Honour of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary", London, 1868. Internet Archive identifier: ManualOfDevotionsInHonour (https://archive.org/details/ManualOfDevotionsInHonour) The seven names are taken verbatim from the volume's Part I chapter headings / Index ("Reflections on the Seven Dolours", pp. 1-123); the rubric and the one-sentence meditations from "Rosary of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary", pp. 128-130; and the prayer at each Dolour from "Devout Prayers in Honour of the Seven Dolours", Part the Second, pp. 124-127. The book prints those last two as consecutive exercises; they are presented together here, as the devotion is commonly printed and prayed today. The verse said after the seven Hail Marys is the volume's own at p. 173, where it is prescribed for "those who say every day seven Hail Marys and the verse". Every word is the 1868 volume's own.
  • CORONA DOLOROSA (Spanish chaplets)Juan Martí y Cantó, Pbro., «Los Dolores de María, puestos á la consideracion del cristiano durante los siete Viérnes de Cuaresma» (Academia Bibliográfico-Mariana). Barcelona: Imprenta de Magriñá y Subirana, calle de Ferlandina, n.º 47, 1865. Con licencia del Ordinario. La Corona Dolorosa, pp. 11-18; la nota de indulgencias «Corona de los siete dolores de la Vírgen Maria», pp. 64-65. archive.org: los-dolores-de-maria (ejemplar digitalizado por Google, Biblioteca particular del Seminario C. de Barcelona). Transcrito de las imágenes de las páginas (hojas n0, n8-n15, n61-n62), no del texto OCR. Se cambia una palabra: en el Quinto Dolor el impreso dice «los bárbaros judíos»; aquí se da «los bárbaros perseguidores», y el dolor lleva una nota que lo dice.