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What thanks and praise to thee we owe 
What thanks and praise to thee we owe, O Priest and Sacrifice divine, for thy dear saint through whom we know so many a gracious word of thine. 
Whom thou didst choose to tell the tale of all thy manhood's toils and tears, and for a moment lift the veil that hides thy boyhood's spotless years. 
How many a soul with guilt oppressed has learned to hear the joyful sound in that sweet tale of sin confessed, the father's love, the lost and found! 
What countless worshipers have sung, in lowly fane or lofty choir, the song that loosed the silent tongue of him who was the Baptist's sire! 
And still the Church through all her days uplifts the strains that never cease, the blessèd Virgin's hymn of praise, the agèd Simeon's words of peace. 
O happy saint! whose sacred page, so rich in words of truth and love, pours on the Church from age to age this healing unction from above. 
The witness of the Savior's life, the great apostle's chosen friend through weary years of toil and strife, and still found faithful to the end. 
So grant us, Lord, like him to live, beloved by man, approved by thee, till thou at last the summons give, and we, with him, thy face shall see.