Proper 26
I’ve reworked my own version, and would appreciate comments:
Almighty and merciful God,
it is your gift alone
by which your faithful people
offer you true and laudable service,
grant, we beseech you,
that we may run, without stumbling, towards your promises;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
Almighty and merciful God,
it is only by your gift
that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service:
Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Book of Common Prayer (TEC) p.235
This translates the Latin original we have been praying for over a thousand years:
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.
Leonine Sacramentary (#574) Masses for July. Gelasian Sacramentary (#1206) for one of the Sunday Masses. Gregorian supplement (#1165) for the thirteenth Sunday after the Pentecost octave. Sarum and all BCPs to 1928 had it for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Cranmer translated this as:
ALMYGHTIE and mercyfull God, of whose onely gifte it cometh that thy faythfull people doe unto thee true and laudable service; graunte we beseche thee, that we may so runne to thy heavenly promises, that we faile not finally to attayne the same; through Jesus Christe our Lorde.
The 2011 Roman Catholic translation, prayed on this same day, is:
Almighty and merciful God,
by whose gift your faithful offer you
right and praiseworthy service,
grant we pray, that we may hasten without stumbling
to receive the things you have promised.
Through our Lord…
We pray that we might run without stumbling – save us from the time of trial. The revisers of the 1662 BCP altered the ending so significantly as to change its meaning.