WDTPRS: 31st Ordinary Sunday – running… stumbling

COLLECT – (2002MR):
Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cuius munere venit,
ut tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur,
tribue, quaesumus, nobis,
ut ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus.

LAME-DUCK ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
God of power and mercy,
only with your help
can we offer you fitting service and praise.
May we live the faith we profess
and trust your promise of eternal life.

SLAVISHLY LITERAL RENDERING:
Almighty and merciful God, from whose gift it comes
that You be served by the faithful worthily and laudably,
grant us, we beseech You,
that we may run toward Your promises without stumbling.

We have a loaded word in our Collect today: munus.   Munus means essentially “a service, office, post, employment, function, duty.” Some synonyms are: officium, ministerium, honos.  A Greek equivalent of munus is “leitourgia” whence comes our word “liturgy”, originally signifying in the ancient Greek world a needed civic work or service that one performs because he ought to for the sake of society.

In the New Testament this old word was applied to a new Christian context for concepts like taking up collections for the poor (i.e., what man does for man) and religious services (man’s worship of God).   To make this more complicated, munus also means “a present, gift.”  When it means “gift” it seems often to be in the ablative case, as in the construction mittere alicui aliquid munere… “to send something to someone as/for a gift”.  I say munus is a loaded word because in theological writing we speak among other things of the three-fold office or tria munera which Christ passed to His Church, the Apostles and their successors: to teach, to govern, to sanctify.

When the Lord gives us commands, and He does (e.g., love one another as I have loved you, pick up your Cross and follow me, be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, do this in memory of me, etc.), we can sum them up in the two-fold commandment of love of God and of neighbor.

All followers of Jesus have been given a two-fold munus to fulfill which reflects the three-fold munera Christ gave to the Church’s ordained priesthood.  I invite you to try an experiment.  See what happens to your perception of the Collect if you make munus mean “office” rather than “gift.”  We might be able to say “ministerial gift” so as to get at both sides of the content of munus.  While looking at it, can you keep both concepts simultaneously in mind?

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This Collect gives me the image of a person hurrying to fulfill a duty or command given by his master or superior.  He is rushing, running.   He might even be carrying a heavy burden.   While dashing forward, I see him trying to be careful under his burden lest he stumble, fall, or spill what he is carrying and thus lose or ruin it.  This could be a description of how we live our Christian vocations sometimes.

Each one of us was made in God’s image.  We were given something to do here.  When we discern God’s will and do our best to live well according to our state in life, we experience heavy burdens.  We have the opportunity to participate in carrying the Cross of Jesus.

The Lord Himself told us through the Gospels that if we want to be with Him, we must participate in His Cross.  We must pick up our Crosses and follow Him each day.

During His fearful Passion, our Lord literally carried His (and our) Cross.  Without a doubt He was hard pressed to stay on His feet under such a burden.  Envision the soldiers, probably the Temple guards, prodding Him while the Roman soldiers cleared the way.  They were forcing Him to go faster in order to beat sundown deadline and the Jewish holy days that followed.  The road He walked would have been uneven and rough, with edges and corners to catch weary feet.

He stumbled.  He fell even though He surely was being as careful as possible.  We stumble and fall too, though not like the sinless Lord.  We stumble in our sins mostly by choice.

In our Collect, we pray that we can hurry, even run, rather than drag along toward the reward of heaven.  We beg God (quaesumus) that we do so without mishap.   We desire neither to give offense God by what we do (offensio) but we also ask that the road be made free of stumbling blocks (offensio) for our feet as we run.

He understands the tough road we travel.

When we stumble in sin, we give offense to God.  Can you hear an echo of our petition in the Lord’s own Prayer? “Lead us not into temptation.”

We must never forget that there is a tempter out there who desires us to fall and give offense to the Lord.  He will place obstacles before our feet.  That one we do not want to meet with even by chance.

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