Our Collect for the 33rd Ordinary Sunday was in the 8th-century Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis and also in the more ancient Veronese Sacramentary.
Da nobis, quaesumus, Domine Deus noster, in tua semper devotione gaudere, quia perpetua est et plena felicitas, si bonorum omnium iugiter serviamus auctori.
This ancient, rich Collect was penned by a master. I like the parallels between perpetua and iugiter, and plena and omnium followed by felicitas and bonorum. This is an ABCCBA pattern. Elegant. Pay attention to the conditional statement, depending on “si … (if )” with the subjunctive: y if x.
Devotio can be “a devotion to duty” or to our state in life, our God-given vocation.
Our “devotion” must lead the soul to keep the commandments of God and the duties of our state before all else. God knew us all before the creation of the cosmos. He called us into existence at precisely the moment He foresaw. Made in His image and likeness, our beings are filled with purpose, no one excluded from His all-embracing vision.
He calls us. If we are devout in respect to God and intent on fulfilling the duties of our state in life as it truly is here and now, then He will give us every actual grace we need to fulfil our vocations. He helps us because we are fulfilling our proper role in His great plan.
Literal rendering: “Grant to us, we beseech You, O Lord our God, always to rejoice in Your devotion, for happiness is perpetual and full, if we serve continually the author of all good things.”
Current ICEL translation (2011): “Grant us, we pray, O Lord our God, the constant gladness of being devoted to you, for it is full and lasting happiness to serve with constancy the author of all that is good.”
Fail. They eliminated the condition! The Latin says that happiness is perpetual and full, if we serve God. They eliminated the protasis of an ideal condition. Why? Is the condition too demanding?
I can’t help but think of the many Catholics now who assume that heaven’s rewards are ours automatically without our having to do anything more than just feel good about ourselves. The fact is, we can lose what Christ won for us through presumption, laziness and sin. Heaven is not automatic.
We must worship God in earnest love, examine our lives, go to Confession and perform good works. We must serve.
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