Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Does the Holy Spirit make us sons and daughters?

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, quem, docente Spiritu Sancto, paterno nomine invocare præsumimus, perfice in cordibus nostris spiritum adoptionis filiorum, ut promissam hereditatem ingredi mereamur.

     Collect (Collecta) for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman missal.
     Daniel McCarthy ("Intimate with a majestic God," The Tablet, 12 August 2006, p. 16) reaches back into the 7th century for the antecedents to this one:
The oldest version of this prayer is found in the Sacramentary of Padua, an adaptation of the papal sacramentary for presbyteral use at St Peter’s Basilica between 670-680. Our version is closest to that in the Sacramentary of Bergamo, a pre-Carolingian, Ambrosian sacramentary.     
     The clause in orange is not present in the Prayer (Oratio) for the Office of Readings, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time, Liturgy of the hours (and therefore early editions of the Novus Ordo), but is present in Bruylants I, no. 145 (pre-788 sacramentary of Prague, Bibliothek des Metropolitanskaptiels Cod. 0.83; cf. Bruylants I, no. 116), 
Deus, quem, docente spiritu sancto, paterno . . . per debitam servitutem
Corpus orationum no. 3886 (post-850 sacramentary of Bergamo, Bibl. di S. Alessandro in Colonna; cf. the late-9th-century Ambrosian sacramentary of Milan (Bibl. del Capitolo Metropol., D 3-3)),
Omnipotens sempiterne deus, quem, docente spiritu sancto, paterno nomine invocare praesumimus, effice in nobis filiorum corda fidelium, ut hereditatem promissam mereamur ingredi per debitam servitutem.
and no. 1482 of the 8th/9th century Gelasian sacramentary of Angoulême (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS Lat. 816),
Deus quem docente Spiritu Sancto, paterno nomine inuocare presumimus, crea in nobis fidelium corda filiorum, ut ad promissam hereditatem adgredi ualeamus per debitam seruitutem
i.e. Corpus orationum no. 1320a (cf. 1320b), which Corpus orationum traces back to the end of the 8th century sacramentaries of Gellone and Rheinau):
Deus, quem, docente spiritu sancto, paterno nomine invocare praesumimus, crea in nobis fidelium corda filiorum, ut ad promissam hereditatem aggredi valeamus per debitam servitutem.
Cf. no. 882 of Concordances et tableaux pour l'étude des grands sacramentaires:
Ds, quem docente spiritu sancto paterno nomine invocare prae sumimus. . . .
     Cf. also Alan Griffiths ("The collect:  a Roman Catholic perspective," in The collect in the churches of the Reformation, ed. Bridget Nichols (London:  SCM Press, 2010), 205), and Fr. Z.

     But in no case does the Latin affirm (as in the pre-2010 translation of the ICEL) that “your Spirit made us your children”:

     Almighty and ever-living God,
     your Spirit made us your children,
     confident to call you Father.
     increase your Spirit within us
     and bring us to our promised inheritance.

What it says is what it says in the new translation of the Missal (except that "we pray" is not there in the Latin):

     Almighty ever-living God,
     whom . . . we dare to call our Father,
     bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
     the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
     that we may merit to enter into the inheritance
     which you have promised.

     Almighty ever-living God,
     whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
     we dare to call our Father,
     bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
     the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
     that we may merit to enter into the inheritance
     which you have promised.

Or, as I would translate this,

     Almighty ever-living God,
     whom, the Holy Spirit teaching,
     we presume to call by the paternal name,
     bring to completion in our hearts
          the spirit of the adoption of sons
     that we may merit to enter into the promised inheritance.

Fr. Z took this one up on 7 August 2015.

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