Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Love those collects. . .

On Easter 3 in the Lutheran Service Book we prayed:

O God, through the humiliation of Your Son You raised up the fallen world. Grant to Your faithful people, rescued from the peril of everlasting death, perpetual gladness and eternal joys; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

It is a wonderful collect with a long history and a particular favorite of mine.  In the Latin it is:

Deus, qui Filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti: fidelibus tuis sanctam concede laetitiam; ut, quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus, gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis.  Amen.

The 1962 Latin is but a word or word form off from the Gelasian Sacramentary for the Sunday after the Octave of Easter, which fell April 14 this year. Deus, qui in filii tui humilitatem iacentem mundum erexisti, laetitiam concede <fidelibus tuis>, ut quos perpetuae <mortis> eripuisti casibus, gaudiis facias sempiternis perfruere.  So it is pretty close.  Collects are remarkably consistent over time.


Two different words in the prayer are used for the English joy: gaudium and laetitia. While you could spend your time trying to mark the distinctions within each term, it might be rabbit hole.  Suffice it to say that most Latin dictionaries would suggest that gaudium is interior joy while laetitia a more outward expression of joy.  You did note that guadium is plural -- many joys!  I do not know the background behind the translation used in LSB except that it is familiar to us from The Lutheran Hymnal.  It is a poetic but faithful translation of the Latin and shows us the elegance of words that do not simply give a literal expression of the original but place it in the best English.  This also is typical of the collects of the Church Year -- another reason to pray them daily following the Sunday for which these were appointed.

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