COLLECT OF THE WEEK - 14
Collect for the 13th Sunday after Trinity:
Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit ut tibi a fidelibus
tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur; tribue nobis, quaesumus, ut ad
promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus. Per Dominum . . .
Our collect, which derives from the Leonine Sacramentary, was translated
fairly literally by Cranmer, but was substantially revised and (as usual)
enlarged by Cosin, so that the 1662 version reads:
Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful
people do unto thee true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that
we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to
attain thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Some of the Reformers' concerns are evident in the translation: "de cujus
munere" becomes "of whose only gift", emphasising that anything good in us
is the sole gift of God; similarly "per Dominum [Jesum Christum]" becomes
"through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord", emphasising that we have no
merits of our own, apart from him. The Collector would not have dissented
from these ideas, but the Reformers found it necessary to spell them out. A
more drastic change is found in the petition: "ut ad promissiones tuas sine
offensione curramus" - literally, "that without offence we may run towards
your promisses", becomes the much longer: "that we may so faithfully serve
thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly
promises". This sets up a balance between service of God in this life, and
enjoying the reward of that service in the next. However, we lose the
connotations of "curramus" which I have discussed in a previous note, on the
collect for the 11th Sunday after Trinity:
["ad tua promissa currentes", "running towards the things you have
promised", derives from St Paul's athletic imagery:
Philippians 3:13: ". . . but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind
and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
1 Corinthians 9:24: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners
compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it."]
Oriens.
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