17 December

We have come to the last days of the Church’s preparation for the feast of the Nativity of the Lord.  

Let’s look at the proper Collect for 17 December in the 2002 Missale Romanum:

COLLECT:
Deus, humanae conditor et redemptor naturae,
qui Verbum tuum in utero perpetuae virginitatis
carnem assumere voluisti,
respice propitius ad preces nostras,
ut Unigenitus tuus, nostra humanitate suscepta,
nos divino suo consortio sociare dignetur.

This ancient prayer is from Gelasian Sacramentary as well as Rotulus 31 published together with the Veronese Sacramentary. It was not in any pre-Conciliar edition of the Missale Romanum.

A REALLY LITERAL VERSION:
O God, creator and redeemer of human nature,
who desired Your Word to assume flesh
in a womb of perpetual virginity,
look propitiously on our prayers,
so that Your Only-Begotten, now that our humanity has been taken up,
may deign to integrate us into His own fellowship.

ANOTHER VERSION SOME THINK IS GOOD:
O God, creator and redeemer of human nature,
who willed that in an ever-virgin womb
your Word should take flesh,
look with favor on our prayers,
that your Only-begotten Son,
who has assumed our humanity,
may admit us as partakers in his divinity.

You see in this prayer how the will of the Father and the Son are perfectly in harmony. We ask the Father that the Son will deign…

We have again a confluence of the different Advents of the Lord, at Bethlehem in the past and as Judge in the future.

Christ took up our flesh in the Incarnation. He took up our flesh in His own Person at the Assumption.

He desired to share our lot (Latin sors).

We ask to be sharer is of His lot (con-sors).

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in SESSIUNCULA. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Comments

  1. Kim D'Souza says:

    My Latin is poor, but it seems to me that the really literal version omits the important word “divino” in translating “divino suo consortio” as “His own fellowship.”

  2. jacobus says:

    I want to repeat the comments of others, Father, in thanking you for these posts. For those of us who follow the 1962 missal nearly exclusively, it is profitable to see that there are, in fact, positive things about the Pauline mass. This cross-pollenization you speak of will yield many fruits.

Comments are closed.