This prayer is found in the Gregorian Sacramentary and many other manuscripts. In 1570 it was the Collect for the Sunday in the Octave of Christmas. The 1970 revisers sought out prayers for the Christmas season more clearly suited to its themes.
This brief text is very difficult to translate, as discrepancies among the versions in pre-conciliar hand-missals clearly demonstrate. The heart of the problem is the verb mereamur. In classical Latin, mereor means 'I earn' or 'I deserve'. Mereor is very common in liturgical texts, but theology teaches us that we cannot earn or deserve God's gifts. To think otherwise is the heresy of Pelagianism, to refute which Saint Augustine said 'when God crowns our merits, he is crowning his own gifts'.
How, then, should we translate mereamur? That is not an easy question to answer, and I do not offer a complete answer here. But I should welcome comments and suggestions from readers of the blog.
The prayer under discussion is unusual: the verb mereor in liturgical texts usually has God's reward as its object, as when we pray the we may 'merit the rewards of the blessed'. But here, we pray 'that we may deserve to abound in good works', to borrow Fr Adrian Fortescue's translation.
When preparing a new translation, ICEL proposed . . . that in the name of your beloved Son we may be made rich in good works. The passive 'be made' was intended to indicate that our good works are God's gift. The Vox Clara committee rejected this, so that now we pray that we may abound in good works. This leaves mereamur untranslated.
We shall need to speak about mereor again as we make our way through the liturgical year.
1 comment:
Father,
'Tis good to see you back!
re mereor
For the avoidance of any hint of Pelagianism, I have normally found that translating it as 'to be found worthy of' .
'merit' to me smacks too much of prizegivings and orders of chivalry.
I would agree that 'we may be found worthy to abound in good works' sound a little strange: perhaps 'that we may worthily abound in good works'.
The current translation
Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions according to your good pleasure,
that in the name of your beloved Son
we may abound in good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
bears a strong resemblance to the pre-war translations found in the English MissaL
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, direct us in all our doings according to thy good pleasure: that we, serving thee in the Name of thy well-beloved Son, may worthily abound in all good works. Who liveth and reigneth with thee.
and the Anglican Missal
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to govern us in all our doings in the way of thy good pleasure: that we, faithfully serving thee in the Name of thy well-beloved Son, may worthily abound in all good works. Who liveth and reigneth with thee...
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