Monday, December 18, 2017

Let us "hasten, alert and with lighted lamps, to meet him"

"Grant that your people, we pray, almighty God, may be ever watchful for the coming of your only Begotten Son, that, as the author of our salvation himself has taught us, we may hasten, alert and with lighted lamps, to meet him when he comes. Who."

"Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus, plebi tuae adventum Unigeniti tui cum summa vigilantia exspectare, ut, sicut ipse docuit auctor nostrae salutis, accensis lampadibus in eius occursum vigilantes properemus.  Qui."


     Collect for Friday, the Second Week of Advent, Roman Missal.  Corpus orationum traces this back to CO no. 734, an 8th-century prayer present already in the Gelasian sacramentary:

Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens deus, hanc gratiam plebi tuae adventum unigeniti tui cum summa vigilantia exspectare, ut, sicut ipse auctor nostrae salutis docuit, velut fulgentes lampadas in eius occursum nostras animas praeparemus.