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Collect of the Week - 4 Shall we examine the Collect for the Third Sunday after Trinity, or that for the feast of St Peter and St Paul, which coincides with the Sunday and displaces it this year? Let's do both; and first, the collect for the Sunday in the Sarum Missal: Deprecationem nostram, quaesumus, Domine, benignus exaudi: et quibus supplicandi praestas affectum, tribue defensionis auxilium. Per Dominum . . . BCP (1662): O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 'Deprecatio' which stands prominently in pole position, means a prayer against some evil which is hanging over our head. e.g. (from the BCP Litany): 'From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord, deliver us.' The word occurs in the 'Gloria in excelsis' of the Mass: 'suscipe deprecationem nostram.' This is rendered in the modern missal (and indeed in the BCP) as 'receive our prayer'; but, as I have indicated, 'deprecatio' is not just any prayer, but a particular kind of prayer. We do not actually have a suitable word in English; 'deprecation' is hardly current English. No particular evils are specified, the use of the word itself implies that we are in danger, an implication made explicit by the hint of military reinforcements in 'tribue defensionis auxilium.' Interestingly the BCP made no attempt whatever to translate 'deprecatio' - 'to hear us', not even 'to hear our prayer' - but compensated by beefing up the end of the petition: 'be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities'. Well, the use of 'deprecatio' does certainly imply impending dangers and adversities. On 'Domine, benignus' let me quote what I said about another collect in my Downside Review article: "The prayer addresses God as Domine, 'Lord' rather than as 'Father'; and with this word one has to take benignus, which I have rendered as 'kind'; but actually in the Latin the two words do not quite go together. They are in different cases, Domine being in the vocative, the case used when speaking to somebody, and benignus being in the nominative, the case used for the subject of a sentence. There is a grammatical disjunction between the two words. To render this in English we would have to resort to something like 'Lord - being the kind Lord that you are - . . .' This rather draws attention to the word benignus, which means 'kind, beneficent, open-hearted, generous, liberal, copious, abundant.' The point is God's generosity, not his mercifulness." And in fact God's mercy might be more in demand if we were seeking forgiveness for something we had done wrong; but in this case we are seeking deliverance from evils offered to us by others. 'supplico' is literally to kneel down, to humble oneself. A more appropriate paraphrase might be 'an humble desire to pray' rather than 'an hearty desire'. The Epistle for this Sunday is from 1 Peter 5, which reads: Omnes autem invicem humilitatem insinuate, quia Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam. Humiliamini igitur sub potenti manu Dei, ut vos exaltet in tempore visitationis: omnem sollicitudinem vestram proiicientes in eum, quoniam ipsi cura est de vobis. Sobrii estote, et vigilare: quia adversarius vester diabolus tanquam leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem devoret, cui resistite fortes in fide . . . "All of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith . . ." We can see very clearly where 'supplicandi' and 'deprecatio' are coming from. The evil from which we require deliverance is the Devil himself. Notice finally the balance between 'deprecatio', the first word of the collect - essentially a cry for aid - and 'auxilium', the last word, supplying the aid itself. Let us now turn to the Collect for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul (29th June): Deus, qui hodiernam diem apostolorum tuorum Petri et Pauli martyrio consecrasti; da ecclesiae tuae eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium. Per Dominum . . . "God, who has consecrated this day by the martyrdom of your apostles Peter and Paul; grant to your Church to follow their rule in all things, through whom it received the beginning of its religion. Though Our Lord . . ." The two apostles are commemorated on the same day, following an ancient tradition that they suffered martyrdom on the same day, St Peter by crucifixion, St Paul by the sword. It is far from certain that this was so, but there is a certain propriety in commemorating them together, as Dr Goulburn observes: " . . . the Apostles Peter and Paul were evidently the two chiefs of the College of the Apostles. The one was God's instrument for converting the Jews; the other for converting the Gentiles . . . And in the mind of the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, there was evidently a parallel between St Peter and St Paul, as co-ordinate characters. The book is styled "Acts of the Apostles;" but the truth is that we hear little or nothing of any Apostles save St Peter in the early part of the book, and St Paul in its later half. Each of them restores an impotent man to the use of his limbs; each of them encounters, and smites with withering reproof, a sorcerer who was counteracting the Gospel; each of them raises the dead to life." And Gouldburn might have added that, among other parallels, each of them is delivered from prison by the ministry of an angel. One might note the use of the singular 'praeceptum' - precept, rule, maxim. Two apostles, but only one rule, one teaching, one Gospel. The parallel careers of the two apostles are alluded to strikingly in the collect in the Gelasian Sacramentary for the octave of the feast: Deus, cujus dextera Beatum Petrum Apostolum ambulantem in fluctibus ne mergeretur, erexit; et Coapostolum ejus Paulum tertio naufragantem de profundo pelagi liberavit; concede propitius; ut amborum meritis aeternam Trinitatis gratiam consequamur. Per . . . God, whose right hand raised Blessed Peter the Apostle when walking on the waves, lest he should sink; and delivered from the depths of the sea his co-apostle Paul, when he was three times shipwrecked; mercifully grant, that by the merits of both we may win the grace of the eternal Trinity. Through . . . Oriens. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%