Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Cyclops/326

Annotations
[Adiutorium nostrum] '''... Et cum spiritu tuo'   (Latin'') These four lines are the standard responsory that precedes the various blessings in the Roman Ritual:

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed...   And he laid his hands upon those things which he blessed.... Here, that is the relative pronoun, used archaically, with ellipsis of the antecedent, to refer to a plurality of things. See the Oxford English Dictionary: that, pron.2 I. 3. a.

'Deus, cuius verbo santificantur omnia ... per Christum Dominum nostrum'   (Latin) O God, by whose word all things are made holy, pour down your blessing on these your creations : and grant that whoever shall make use of them, with gratitude and in accordance with your law and your will, may, by calling on your most holy name, receive at your instigation health of body and protection of soul, through Christ our Lord.

This is the Benedictio Pro Re Quacumque (Blessing for Anything), which is given in some editions of the Rituale Romanum as a general blessing for use in circumstances where none of the standard blessings would be suitable. In this case, however, there are suitable blessings that could have been used to bless the viands and the beverages: for example, Benedictio ad Quodcumque Comestibile (Blessing for Anything Edible)