Thursday, July 2, 2020

Visitation, Dominican Rite

Today the Dominican Breviary and Missal supply excellent proper prayers, different to the Roman orations, for the feast of the Visitation of Our Lady. (I take the translations, with alterations, from The Saint Dominic Missal, published in 1959.)

The Collect:

Omnipotens et misericors Deus, majestatem tuam suppliciter exoramus, ut sicut Unigenitum tuum per visitationem et salutationem Genitricis ejus puero clauso in utero revelasti; ita meritis ejusdem Genitricis, et precibus, ipsum nos facias revelata facie perpetuo contemplari. Qui tecum vivit et regnat...

(Almighty and merciful God, we humbly beseech thy majesty, that as thou didst make known thine Only-begotten Son through the visit and greeting of his mother to* the child as yet unborn; so likewise thou wouldst grant to us, by the merits and prayers of the same mother, to see him with unveiled face unto all eternity: who liveth and reigneth with thee...)

[* TSDM has "to", reading puero clauso as dative, which I initially misread as signifying "by", thinking of puero clauso as ablative: but of course the former is correct, as it refers to the reaction to the greeting of Our Lady on the part of the unborn Baptist as yet in his mother's womb.]

The Secret:

Omnipotens sempiteme Deus, qui de omnibus in te confidentibus curam semper habes, præsta quæsumus, ut per oblationem, quam tibi offerimus, visitationem spiritualem beatæ Mariæ Virginis in nostris necessitatibus semper sentiamus. Per Dominum...

(Almighty and eternal God, who carest for all such as trust in thee, grant, we beseech thee, that through this offering we make to thee, we may always feel the spiritual visitation of the blessed Virgin Mary in all our needs: through our Lord...)

The Postcommunion:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui commemorationem visitationis beatissimæ Mariæ Matris Dei fieri voluisti; præsta quæsumus, ut per hoc sacrificium, quod sumpsimus, ab ejus visitationis gratia nullatenus excidamus. Per eumdem Dominum...

(Almighty and eternal God, who didst will us to make a commemoration of the visitation of the most blessed Mary, Mother of God; grant, we beseech thee, that through this sacrifice, which we have received, we may never fall from the grace of her visitation: through the same our Lord...)