The Collect for the Novus Ordo of the Mass forf the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul is in part inspired by that of the parallel prayer in the 1962 Missale Romanum. It a new creation, though not entirely new.
COLLECT:
Deus, qui huius diei venerandam
sanctamque laetitiam in apostolorum
Petri et Pauli sollemnitate tribuisti,
da Ecclesiae tuae
eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum,
per quos religionis sumpsit exordium.
The last part, “eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium” is in the 1962MR Collect. The first part is a new composition, based on some ancient patterns of prayers for feasts of other apostles.
What we have going on here has little to do with continuity. The architects of the Novus Ordo wanted to express something quite different from what the 1962 Collect expressed. The first part of the 1962MR prayer speaks of the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul.
There is a usage in late Latin of sumo and exordium, which is surely at work here: “to make a beginning”.
Since this seems to be a fairly new prayer we have a little flexibility with very complex word: religio. Let’s refer to the great Lewis & Short Dictionary: “Reverence for God (the gods), the fear of God, connected with a careful pondering of divine things; piety, religion, both pure inward piety and that which is manifested in religious rites and ceremonies; hence the rites and ceremonies, as well as the entire system of religion and worship, the res divinae or sacrae, were frequently called religio or religiones“.
On the other hand, the French source for liturigcal Latin Blaise/Dumas suggests merely: “piete” and “religion”. Religio in our context needs a word or phrase that gets at the external express or our interior attitude.
LITERAL STAB:
O God, who for the solemnity of the
apostles Peter and Paul
bestowed the holy and venerable joy of this day,
grant to Your Church
to follow in all things their instruction
through whom she made a beginning of the life of faith.
You decide.
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I heard that today is Pope Emeritus Benedict’s 70th anniversary to the priesthood. I cannot even imagine such a glorious thing. He remains in our prayers and offerings. I wonder where we would all be without his priesthood. God bless him!
I was curious to see that 1962 did that strange thing with ending both under one conclusion which was NOT the case in my 1946 Benziger which treats a commemoration as any other with antiphon, etc (and further had the commemoration of the ancient octave of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist).
For my own praying of the Office I have the luxury as a layman to incorporate a bit of Divino Afflatu always commemorating 1st Vespers and the old octaves while following 1962 precedence, so did this one pre-1962 style.