Same Collect, Different Collect

Having read the Collect of Advent Sunday quite a number of times in the Breviary this week, I was intrigued to hear it read in English at morning Mass at Carmel today, Friday the 6th (since sadly St Nicholas was not commemorated, his being but an optional celebration in the modern West):

Stir up your power, we pray, O Lord, and come, that with you to protect us, we may find rescue from the pressing dangers of our sins, and with you to set us free, we may be found worthy of salvation. Who live and reign…

This struck me as a very able rendering of the Latin:

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

However, the traditional Collect of St Nicholas – not reproduced in the Novus Ordo – was evidently a little too strongly worded for sensitive moderns, despite the great need the sinners of this age have of it:

Deus, qui beatum Nicolaum Pontificem innumeris decorasti miraculis: tribue, quæsumus; ut, ejus meritis et precibus, a gehennæ incendiis liberemur. Per…

That is, 

O God, Who didst adorn the blessed pontiff Nicholas with miracles uncountable, grant, we beg, that, by his merits and prayers, we may be delivered from the fires of hell. Through…

It saddens me to find that what our wicked and sinful age stands most in need of – above all, to be spared Hell, and at the intercession of the saints to be saved through Christ at the last – to have been by overly contented "experts" judged too controversial, when, given the slaughters and every vile crime of the past century, one would think there to be abundant motivation to utter such a plea daily.

As usual, Vetus melius est, "The old is better" – and we have the authority of Pope Francis for calling the traditional Roman Rite the Vetus Ordo, and hence my referring this text of the Gospels to the same.

May I extend to the Russian Catholic parish of Holy Trinity – St Nicholas in Melbourne, every good wish for their patronal feast: though, of course, as they keep to the Julian calendar, they will not serve the Divine Liturgy in his honour until the 19th of December according to the Gregorian.

I note that their services contains a similar prayer to St Nicholas (the 2nd troparion after the heirmos of the 2nd Canon of the 4th Ode at Matins):

Standing before the throne of God, cease thou never to make earnest supplication in behalf of all of us, thy faithful servants, O wise and wondrous Nicholas, that we may be delivered from everlasting fire, from the enemy, from the wicked tongue, and from affliction.

May St Nicholas intercede for us with Christ God, that He save our souls.

St John Chrysostom

The Traditional Rite (incl. the Dominican form) keeps to-day the memory of St John Chrysostom, Bishop, Confessor (indeed, all but Martyr) and Doctor - why now? because in the Byzantine Rite, the 27th of January is the feast of the transfer of his relics... which repose under one of the side altars of St Peter's Basilica, where I venerated them a few weeks ago.

I recall that, even in the suffering of his exile, or rather of his being hounded to death, he never ceased to exclaim, Glory be to God for all things.  There is an Akathist of this title and on a like theme, composed by an orthodox bishop who suffered in the Arctic gulags of Soviet Russia.

His Troparion and Kontakion:

The grace that shines forth from your mouth like a torch has enlightened the universe, bestowed treasures of generosity upon the world and shown us the depth of your humility.  While you teach us by your words, Father John Chrysostom, pray to the Word, Christ our God, that He may save our souls.

From heaven you received divine grace, and from your lips we all learn to worship One God in the Trinity, O Blessed and Holy John Chrysostom.  It is meet that we praise you, for you are indeed a teacher revealing the things of God.

Three Sarcophagi for St Catherine

Inside the altar (as the Greeks call the sanctuary) of the great church of the monastery of St Catherine at the base of Mt Sinai, reposes the sacred body of St Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, Patroness of Philosphers. Now as her Roman collect indicates, it is piously said that her mortal remains were translated thence from the scene of her martyrdom by the agency of angels; as monks are equals-to-the-angels, leading an angelic life in this world, it would not be too skeptical to speak of her translation rather at their hands. 

(St Catherine herself has performed a surprising disappearing and reappearing act in recent years, having been dropt from the calendar only to be reinstated by the late John Paul the Great; skeptics might say that he performed not only many canonizations, but even as the pièce de resistance restored one whose very historicity has been questioned! - but the Church knows her own foremost members.)

The holy relics of this Virgin Martyr sleep out the days remaining till the General Resurrection within a Byzantine sarcophagus, strangely accompanied on either side by more recent would-be reliquaries.  A friend who while a Russian monk visited St Catherine's Monastery told me the tale of these sarcophagi.  

The cult of St Catherine being very much esteemed in Russia of old, Peter the Great donated a sarcophagus of gold to the monastery, that her mortal remains might lie in greater state.  The good monks duly accepted the priceless gift, and transferred her body to its new bed - but found, upon next returning to the church, that she had popped herself back into her former couch!  This occurred several times, and they realized by this sign that she preferred her original abode.  

Next, the years having passed, Catherine the Great, that not-so-pious Empress (or immoral usurper, in plain language), revering for reasons of policy her name-saint, and having had St Catherine's feast day in Russia moved a day early, that it - the Imperial name-day - not be overshadowed by the Leave-taking of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, also donated a munificent sarcophagus to the monastery in Sinai, this time one most curiously wrought of silver, in Baroque style.  But no sooner did the monks approach to move their Saint's relics into this resting place, than flames roared out of it, terrifying them into desisting, and displaying the Divine anger at so hypocritical a gift from such an imperious sinner.

Thus, to this day, St Catherine sleeps in her age-old monument, betwixt two yet grander, but rejected beds.

[Sed contra: having now checked my facts, I find the above story seems to be not the whole story of her reliquary...]

The Collect of St Catherine:

Deus, qui dedisti legem Moysi in summitate montis Sinai, et in eodem loco per sanctos Angelos tuos corpus beatæ Catharinæ Virginis et Martyris tuæ mirabiliter collocasti: præsta, quæsumus; ut, ejus meritis et intercessione, ad montem, qui Christus est, pervenire valeamus: Qui tecum vivit et regnat...

(God, Who didst give the Law to Moses on the peak of Mount Sinai, and in the selfsame spot by Thy holy Angels the body of blessed Catherine Thy Virgin and Martyr didst marvelously emplace; grant, we beseech: that, through her merits and intercession, we may be able to come unto the Mount Which is Christ: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth...)

As the Old Law was given unto Moses by angels through a mediator (cf. Gal. iii, 19), so may our mediatrix with the Lord be St Catherine, that we have access, not unto Mt Sinai as of old, but unto Him, our Saviour Jesus Christ; and on this point consider what is said in St Paul to the Hebrews xii, 18-25.

Commemorating this powerful patroness, join in this her Greek troparion:

Let us praise the all-lauded and noble bride of Christ,

the godly Catherine, the guardian of Sinai and its defence,

who is also our support and succour and our help;

for with the Holy Spirit's sword

she hath silenced brilliantly the clever among the godless;

and being crowned as a martyr, 

she now doth ask great mercy for us all.