Almighty and everlasting God,
who art always more ready to hear than we to pray,
and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve,
pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy,
forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid,
and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask.
through ...
Latin:
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui abundantia pietatis tuae et merita supplicum excedis et vota; effunde super nos misericordiam tuam ut dimittas quae conscientia metuit, et adjicias quod oratio non praesumit; per
[Leonine& Galatian Sacramentaries]
Introit: God is in his holy habitation
Ps: Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered...
Epistle: 1 Cor 15:1-10 Moreover, brethern, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you...
Gradual: My heart trusteth in God...
Gospel: Lke 18:9-14 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves ...
You may have noted there is a citation with two sacramentaries below the collect. The first original of this prayer appeared in the Leonine Sacramentary, and then later the author of the Gelasian Sacramentary did some editing to word-dress it. This then is the Latin "second original." The English translation is a good example of poetic license. Thomas Cranmer expanded on the thoughts a bit in the first English translation for of 1549. Then in the BCP revision of 1662, John Cosin made some additional changes mainly in the smoothing of the termination.
(by the way, we approach the 350th anniversary of the 1662 BCP on St Bartholomew's Day, 24 August 2012. The 1662 is a book still in daily use around the world, as well as those BCPs based directly on it like the 1928 American version and perhaps some others like our Lutheran Service Book under study this year. I am sure that several of our brethren use the 1662 daily.)
In the Gospel, our Lord teaches the parable of the Pharisee and the publican praying in the Temple. He taught that the publican went down justified, while the Pharisee did not! Why? Because of the Sin of Pride. The Pharisee never indicated that his conscience was afraid for anything. He could not have prayed "Thou art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve." He felt he deserved it all. He self-justified his salvation on his perceived merits. He was blind to his faults, and his chief fault was pride of heart. Conversely, the publican confessed his faults with a true, contrite, and penitent heart; and Jesus said that God heard him and justified him.
God is ready to receive our humble prayers, and more ready than we to give them. There are many in the modern church who have discarded the idea of sin and fallen man. There is no confession-no remorse-only self justification and Pride of Life. A fellow Centurion lamented to me this past Sunday that he had left a certain church when they put down the Bible and began teaching from a book entitled "I'm OK, You're OK" in adult Sunday School. We agreed that it is a false Gospel. (The true Gospel is more like "I'm not OK and neither are you, but that is OK if you are Christ's own". HT to brother David)
On Friday of this week in Evening Prayer (1928 BCP) this message of the waywardness of man was loud and clear,
Micah in chapter 7 wrote, "The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men",
and Paul in Romans 7 wrote, "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I"
Paul concluded this passage with the solution: O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
An homily of Gregory on "How the humble and the haughty are to be admonished"
"I' not OK, neither are you" thoughts from the secular press and mental health profession
ps. one may note that the collects in the BCP are off by one since Trinity 3 from those in the Lutheran Service Book.
Finis
(Portions were paraphrased and passages cited from The Collect of the Day, by Paul Zeller Strodach, 1939, The United Lutheran Press, Philadelphia) http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/s/t/r/strodach_pz.htm
The Ancient Collect: Its history and form
-- Released by Primus Pilus
Legio Christi-Ecclesia Militans
"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" [St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 14:19]
* ORDO CENTURIONUM * IN HOC SIGNO VINCES * TIME DEUM ET OPERARE IUSTITIAM
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