The Collect for the 24th Ordinary Sunday is an ancient prayer found in the Veronese Sacramentary:
Respice nos, rerum omnium Deus creator et rector, et, ut tuae propitiationis sentiamus effectum, toto nos tribue tibi corde servire.
Propitiatio means “an appeasing; atonement”. It can also mean the propitiatory sacrifice itself.
The current ICEL translation (2011): “Look upon us, O God, Creator and ruler of all things, and, that we may feel the working of your mercy, grant that we may serve you with all our heart.”
St Augustine (d 430), in his Confessions (3, 7), uses the phrase “unus et verus creator et rector universitatis”, very like the first line, which rings like St Ambrose of Milan’s hymn Deus Creator Omnium.
This English rendering is weak. It should read like, “the effect [‘working’… OK] of Your act of atonement”.
Propitiation is an act of appeasement begging for God’s mercy. We seek mitigation of the punishments we justly deserve both in this world and of temporal punishment in the next. Propitiation is distinguished from impetration (from the Latin impetro, “to obtain by entreaty”), the appeal to God’s goodness for spiritual or temporal wellbeing for ourselves or others. By impetratory prayer we beg God for benefits. By propitiatory prayer we beg for mercy and forgiveness.
Throughout the ages people have wondered whether it makes any sense to pray to God at all. After all, God is omniscient and eternal. We cannot bend God to our will. Does it make any difference to offer prayers to such a God?
In His earthly life, Jesus demonstrated that prayers are effective. He was moved by His Mother at Cana to change water into wine, by the Syro-Phoenician woman to exorcise her daughter, by the Good Thief to remember him in His Kingdom, and by many others. Our Lord Himself taught us to pray, to ask for things and to beg mercy. And so, we pray.
Speaking of impetration, St Thomas Aquinas (d 1274) drills into the question (STh II, IIae, q 83, a 2): “We pray not that we may change the divine disposition, but …‘that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give’ (St Gregory, Dialogues)”. The same applies to begging for God’s mercy, propitiatory prayer.
Confidently but humbly, boldly but without presumption, raise your cares and petitions to God without treating Him as if He were a cosmic concierge.
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