Collect of the Week - 35
Dominica in Quinquagesima
Preces nostras, quaesumus, Domine, clementer exaudi; atque a peccatorum
vinculis absolutos, ab omni [nos] adversitate custodi. Per Dominum.
The Reformers did not translated this one; so I'll have a go myself:
Lord, we beseech thee to listen kindly to our prayers; and to keep us,
loosed from the chains of our sins, from all aversity. Through our Lord . . .
Not all exemplars of the Sarum Missal have the word "nos", but I would be at
a loss to construe the collect without it.
The idea of "absolution" from sins is so widespread that one needs to be
reminded that it is a metaphor. The two most prominent NT expressions for
"sin" are
(1) Greek "hamartia", literally "missing the mark"; a metaphor from
archery; this is usually rendered by Latin "peccatum", meaning an error.
Now an error needs correction - the careless archer needs to take better
aim. "Missing the mark" is not something from which one can be "loosed";
we need to seek another metaphor.
(2) "Debt" - Latin "debitum". This is the word used in the Lord's Prayer:
forgive us our debts, or, in the traditional translation, trespasses. This
speaks of falling short in our duty to God, or to our neighbour. Again, it
is not something from which we can be "loosed".
We do speak of being "loosed" or "released" from debt, but we are employing
not so much a mixed metaphor as a double metaphor. We might, as a result of
debt, be cast into prison or sold into slavery; in either case our freedom
would be taken away; and it is from this state of bondage that we might
seek to be released.
So we find in the NT the notion that sin brings about our bondage, a bondage
from which we need to be released. The keys to our chains are committed to
Peter at Matthew 16:19,
et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum
et quodcumque ligaveris super terram erit ligatum in caelis
et quodcumque solveris super terram erit solutum in caelis
"And I shall give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven
and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"
"Absolution" therefore means, not so much telling a person that his or her
sins do not matter, or assuring the person that he or she is still loved
despite those sins, but rather releasing the person from the limitations of
action which those sins have brought about. It is not so much a moral
matter as a practical one, empowering that person to get on with his or her
life. Thus one can find the notion of "absolution" and "bondage to Satan"
in contexts where no moral lapse is supposed.
For example, the woman with curvature of the spine at Luke 19:16,
hanc autem filiam Abrahae quam alligavit Satanas ecce decem et octo annis
non oportuit solvi a vinculo isto die sabbati
"And this daughter of Satan whom Satan bound for eighteen years,
was in not fitting for her to be absolved from this chain on the Sabbath day"
Interestingly the Gospel for Quinquagesima (Luke 18:31) concerns the cure of
a blind man - released, so to speak, from his bondage in darkness.
I am rather glad that the Reformers did not translate this collect, for I
suspect they would have made it more forensic (worded in terms of "crime"
and "punishment") than in fact it is. No doubt "clementer" would have been
rendered "mercifully".
However, instead of translating it, they composed their own collect, very
fine in its own rather different way, based on the Epistle for the day, 1
Corinthians 13.
"O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing
worth; send the Holy ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent
gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which
whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son
Jesus Christ's sake."
Oriens.
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