Once again, Sunday October 11 and the week following, Anglicans (Episcopalians) and Roman Catholics are praying the same collect/opening prayer in the Eucharist and in Daily Prayer.
The Latin original is:
Tua nos, Domine, quaesumus, gratia semper et praeveniat et sequatur, ac bonis operibus jugitur praestet esse intentos.
Anglicans pray this as:
Lord, we pray
that your grace may always precede and follow us,
that we may continually be given to good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Roman Catholics pray this as:
Lord,
our help and guide,
make your love the foundation of our lives.
May our love for you express itself
in our eagerness to do good for others.
You can read more about this prayer here.
That Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and others share the same lectionary is well documented. That, from time to time, Anglicans and Roman Catholics pray the same collect on the same day was explicable with the shared pre-Vatican II liturgies, but has, other than on this site as far as I am aware, not been noted or explained.
Let us widen the circle that prays this prayer together this coming weekend and week.
Was there perhaps a “syncronisation” of some prayers as there was with the Creed, Gloria, etc? Also possibly Anglicans and RCs sharing some prayers that are reckoned to have originated in the early Church?
The agreed texts of the Creed, Gloria, etc. is well documented. Unfortunately the RC church is about to abandon these agreed texts. No one knows how this synchronisation occurred. The RC church moved our shared collects to fit the new lectionary – my suspicion is that TEC moved collects and kept one eye on the Vatican’s placing – but I have no evidence for that & would love to know. Vatican collect experts did not know about this synchronisation & cannot explain it.
Thank you for including the Latin text this week, which makes clear the basis of your comparison. I would still question whether there is any meaningful sense in which these two prayers are ‘the same’, given the (presumably deliberate) decision of the Catholic translators to depart from the theological content, wording, and structure of the original.
On another point: it may be true that in some, perhaps most (I don’t know) provinces of the Anglican communion this is the collect for this week, but it is not so in all. In the Church of England the authorized collects for the 18th Sunday after Trinity from Common Worship are:
Almighty and everlasting God,
increase in us your gift of faith
that, forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to that which is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
and
God, our judge and saviour,
teach us to be open to your truth
and to trust in your love,
that we may live each day
with confidence in the salvation which is given
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
and the BCP 1662 collect (legal, though rarely used outside cathedral choral evensong) is
LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
This is not meant to be a piece of English chauvinism, just information (which I am sure most readers will not need).
Before I joined the CofE I was unsure about changes in the RC liturgy – I wondered if ICEL was maybe trying to create a “halfway house” between the Novus Ordo as it had been and the Tridentine Rite, which as you know has been re-authorised where demand for it exists. I remember there being bitter factionalism between supporters of the Tridentine Rite and of the Novus Ordo…ah well, it’s not my problem anymore.
Graham, each province makes its own decisions about liturgy. New Zealand’s collect is provided on the home page of this site. New Zealand and CofE this week share the same collect, but do not do so this coming Sunday. In the commentaries I try to put the Latin original when available, with a click-through from the blog post. Your CofE collect is a new composition by David Frost, and hence has neither Latin original, nor would it be shared with Roman Catholics. It has similarities to the 1549/1662 collect for Trinity 11 which, again, TEC and RCs share on the same day (September 27). The RC church is close to authorising its new English translations of these collects, which, I am sure, will make them appear a lot more similar. Thank you for your contribution.