What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Maybe someone can find out more about this. I am hearing that Ukrainian Catholic bishops in the Ukraine are upset that some priests of the SSPX are working there and having some successes. Any news about this?

I have been saying that the East, especially the Orthodox, must be watching us to see what we are doing about liturgy.

UPDATE

Here is a story in CWN:

Byzantine Catholics decry Lefebvrite inroads in Ukraine

Lviv, Dec. 1, 2006 (CWNews.com) – An archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has denounced the ordination of 2 priests and 7 deacons for the schismatic Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), and the participation of a Ukrainian priest in the Warsaw ceremony.

Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four bishops illicitly ordained by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebre in 1988, presided at the ordinations, with Father Vasyl Kovpak, the head of the SSPX in Ukraine, taking part. Most of the people attending the ordinations were Ukrainian traditionalists.

Archbishop Ihor Vozniak of Lviv said that the ordination of priests to serve in Ukraine was a "criminal" act, since Bishop Williamson ignored the authority of the Roman and Byzantine Catholic bishops of the region. Archbishop Vozniak, who heads the Byzantine Church in Lviv, stressed that none of the priests ordained by Williamson would have permission to serve Ukrainian Catholic parishes.

The Lviv archdiocese complained bitterly about the presence of Lefebvrite priests in the city, saying that the traditionalist clerics were causing confusion and division among the faithful. The archdiocese was particularly critical of Father Kovpak, saying that "he deceives the church by declaring that he is a Greek [Byzantine] Catholic priest," while supporting a group that uses the old Latin liturgy exclusively, eschewing the Byzantine tradition, and does not maintain allegiance to the Holy See. Officials of the Lviv archdiocese said that Father Kovpak could face excommunication from the Byzantine Catholic Church.

Here is the Collect for Monday of the 1st Week of Advent:

COLLECT:
Fac nos, quaesumus, Domine Deus noster,
adventum Christi Filii tui sollicitos exspectare,
ut, dum venerit pulsans, orationibus vigilantes,
et in suis inveniat laudibus exsultantes.

Today’s prayer had its origin in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary.

The adjective sollicitus can have a physical sense of "agitated" as in "busy", but an interior dimension as well, as in "anxious" or "apprehensive". In our context, we are given an image of someone who is interiorly "worked up", excited about the coming of the Lord and is therefore engaged in the appropriate works. You will also want to "attract" that suis to the subject of inveniat rather than exsultantes.

LITERAL VERSION:
Cause us, we beg You, O Lord our God,
to await as anxious people the coming of Christ Your Son,
so that, when He will have come, knocking,
He will find people vigilant in prayers and rejoices in His praises.

SMOOTHER VERSION:
We entreat You, O Lord our God,
to make us into a people anxiously awaiting the coming of Christ, Your Son,
that, when he arrives and knocks upon the door,
He will find us vigilant in prayer and rejoicing in His praises.

Tell me if you don’t think what the Holy Father said during his Angelus address yesterday echoes this Collect (my translation):

He comes in the history of humanity, to knock upon the door of every man and woman of good will, to bring to every individual, family and people the gift of fraternity, of concord and of peace. For this Advent is the preeminent time of hope, when believers in Christ are invited to remain in vigilant and industrious expectation, nourished by prayer and effective diligence of love. May the approach of the Birth of Christ fill the heart of all Christians with joy, serenity and peace.

Anyone have the lame-duck ICEL version presently being used?