Benedicite

BENEDICITE: The name given, from its first word in the Latin, to the canticle which stands in the Anglican Prayer-book as an alternative to the Te Deum, commonly used in Advent and Lent, and in the Roman breviary as a part of the priest's thanksgiving after celebrating mass. It is taken from the apocryphal fragment of the Song of the Three Holy Children (verses 35–65), which supplements the narrative of Dan. iii, and seems to have been used in public worship in the postexilic Jewish Church, and in the Christian at least from the fourth century.