Let us pray (in silence) [that through the fifty days of Easter, the Risen Christ will touch and transform our lives]
pause
Grant, we pray, O God, [or Almighty God]
that we, who share in the paschal celebrations,
may, through your goodness,
hold fast to them
in the way we live our lives;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
This is an ancient collect. It has been used on this particular Sunday for centuries, but, originally with its past tense (“who have celebrated“), after Vatican II and the renewal of the Easter Season to fifty days, it was moved to the last day of this season. I am suggesting something different: leave it here, on this Sunday, but (as I have above) change the tense to present continuous (I have made it “who share in”).
You can find more on this collect here: Second Sunday of Easter.
This coming Sunday also has a number of different titles: Low Sunday, Quasimodo Sunday, Dominica in albis depositis, Pascha clausum, and most recently, Divine Mercy Sunday. Again, you can find out more about these titles at: Second Sunday of Easter.
Any comments, suggestions, resources, of course, are welcome below in the comments section.
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image: John Granville Gregory’s Still Doubting
Always a pleasure to read your collect translations and meditations, Bosco.
I thought you might enjoy the cognate collect from the so-called “Missale Gothicum” (Vat. reg. lat. 317), copied between 690 and 710 at Luxeuil, or in a related scriptorium, apparently for use at a Burgundian cathedral. It is for the Sunday after Easter, which is called the “Mass to Conclude the Easter Feast”. The style is, to say the least, rather different from what one finds in a Roman collect; but the sentiment isn’t all that remote:
God, Creator and Moderator of all light, whom heavenly things admire and earthly things fear, for whom hell trembles, whom the squadrons of angels and armies of archangels serve, you have come not to conquer the world which you made yourself, but to bring down the sins of the world which the devil devised. “For you deigned to so love the world that you handed over your Only-begotten” (John 3:16) for our salvation. For through his cross we are redeemed, through his death we are brought to life, through his Passion we are saved, through his resurrection we are glorified. We therefore call you through supplication to him, that you deign to support these servants in all things, as you supported our fathers who hoped for your mercy. Grant also to help them all, so that in their senses there is the fear of love for you, in their hearts faith, in their work justice, in their doing love, in their speaking truth, in their manners discipline, so that they worthily and rightly deserve to obtain for themselves the reward of immortality. Through…
(Translated by Els Rose, The Gothic Missal, Corpus Christianorum in Translation 27 [Turnhout: Brepols, 2017], 237–38.)
I confess, prayers like this leave me not particularly sad that the Gallican Rite was suppressed in favour of the Roman during the eighth and ninth centuries…
Thanks, Jesse. I suppose the skeleton of the collect structure is still under this overweight prayer. Blessings.