Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Collect for Advent Sunday


Excita, quæsumus, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni: ut ab imminentibus peccatorum nostrorum periculis, te mereamur protegente eripi, te liberante salvari: Qui vivis...

Stir up, we beseech, Lord, Thy power, and come: that from the impending dangers of our sins, Thou protecting, we may deserve to be freed, and Thee delivering, we may be saved. Who livest...

But, in a spirit of respect toward the legitimate patrimony of Anglicanism, now being brought into the unity of Holy Church, here is the B.C.P. Collect for Advent Sunday, which is ordered to be repeated daily until Christmas Eve:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that "we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light" (Rom. xiii, 12b), now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This is a really splendid eschatological prayer, and worthy of serious consideration: God grant its petition.

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