Collect of the Week - 44
Dominica secunda post Pascha.
Deus, qui in Filii tui humilitate jacentem mundum erexisti; fidelibus tuis
perpetuam concede laetitiam, ut quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus,
gaudiis facias sempiternis perfrui. Per eundem.
God, who by the humility of your Son has raised up a fallen world; grant to
your faithful people, perpetual joy, that those whom you have snatched from
the fall of everlasting death, you may make to enjoy everlasting joys.
Through the same.
Again, my own rather rough-and-ready translation. The world has fallen, and
is so to speak lying down (jacentem). It is raised up and made to stand
upright (erexisti) by the humility of God's Son. There are contrasts
between lying down and standing up, between perpetual death and perpetual
joy. The paradox of being raised up through humility may have been
suggested by the hymn of Philippians 2:6-11, ". . .he was humbler yet, even
to accepting death, death on a cross. But god raised him high . . ."
Once again, the BCP ignored the Latin collect (I can't imagine why, since it
is a most beautiful and balanced prayer, and contains nothing to which the
reformers could have objected) and composed an entirely new one:
Almighty God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice
for sin, and also an ensample of godly life; give us grace that we may
always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily
endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Oriens.
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