I posted this in 2007, and herein revise.
Here is the Collect for Thursday of the 2nd Week of Advent in the 2002MR:
COLLECT:
Excita, Domine, corda nostra
ad praeparandas Unigeniti tui vias,
ut, per eius adventum,
purificatis tibi mentibus servire mereamur.
This was in the 1962 Missale for the 2nd Sunday of Advent. It is added every day during the week after any collect which might take precedence (such as yesterday). Centuries before, the “Tridentine” Missal it was in the Gelasian Sacramentary, as well as the Gregorian.
WDTPRS LITERAL VERSION:
Stir up our hearts, O Lord,
to make ready the paths for Your Only-Begotten,
so that through His Coming
we may be worthy to serve You with minds made pure.
2008 CORRECTED ICEL TRANSLATION:
Stir up our hearts, O Lord,
to prepare the paths of your Only-begotten Son,
that through his coming
we may be found worthy to serve you
with minds made pure.
LAME-DUCK ICEL STILL IN USE (not making this up):
Almighty Father,
give us the joy of your love
to prepare the way for Christ our Lord.
Help us to serve you and one another.
Yes, I too had to double-check, triple-check that I had the correct page.
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Father Z: I too had to double-check, triple-check that I had the correct page.
Why? Does it not look to you — even at first glance — like a standard daily issue Lame-Duck ICEL Still In Use collect? To me, it does. Complete with the mandatory “help” and “love” and “one another” despite the absence of any corresponding words in the Latin original.
I don’t remember what Sunday it was, but once when attending a Latin OF Mass, I remember stumbling on a prayer, which in the original Latin, was a prayer for spiritual assistance, but somehow got transmogrified into a prayer for social justice in (what is now) the ICEL lame duck version.
There are times I’ve found that the alternate collects were much closer to the original Latin prayer, than the so-called translation.
Then there’s this:
ICEL 1998 (Abandoned)
Stir up our hearts, O Lord,
to prepare the way for your only Son,
that his coming may purify our minds
and make us worthy to serve you.
Seems like “Begotten” inclusion and treatment of the ut clause are the main differences from the 2008 product.
NB: This is also the Collect for the 1962 BR for today.
Wow! I feel like saying, “Stop! Thief!”
the ICEL stole the meaning away from so many prayers; it was just sinful
SO again, just ask yourself — was this incompetence or error that even the world’s worst weatherman would find unacceptable, or was it a deliberate “dishonest paraphrase”?
Not ‘dynamic equivalence’.
Not even riffing on a theme.
Just a tossed platitude salad.
The lame-duck version is embarrassing.
I read this prayer in my OF missal yesterday morning and KNEW – just knew – that this was not the prayer the Church intended me to read! I have said it before: I have worked as a professional translator for over 20 years and would not have made a brown farthing if my work was anywhere near the truly appalling standard of the ICEL. Hurrah for the corrected version and a still-louder hurrah for Summorum Pontificem. (A FSSP father has just been appointed curate to a church here in Brussels. Amazing news and such a blessing for this benighted city!)
I’ve read that the collects for four of the Sundays before Christmas in the Sarum Rite began with “Excita”: does anyone know a handy resource for their wider liturgical history and context (including in translation – or ‘not exactly translation’) ?