A Long Overdue Collect Study. . .

The Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent is similar to two other Advent Collects and yet distinct.  In this and in none other of the Sunday Collects are there three imperatives. On this last Sunday before the feast of the Nativity, the Church raises the stakes of the prayers lest we miss the fullness of the grace of our Lord's incarnation and therefore miss out on the grace of His coming again in power and glory. First, the Collect repeats the call begun on the First Sunday in Advent.  Excita or rouse or stir up Your power, O Lord, and come.  The object of this excita is magnified by the urgency of the prayer.  Hasten to aid us with Your great power and might or it will be too late and we will be lost.

In the purpose clause of the Collect (even without the ut) is the reason for this call.  For it is only by our Lord's first Advent that we can are sustained by His second Advent and prepared for His third Advent.  Indeed, it is by His coming in flesh that He now comes to us through the means of grace and, particularly, by this Eucharist, and it is this Word and Sacrament by which we are sustained and made fit for His coming at the end of the days in power and glory.  Again, it clear that what has the power to prevent us from receiving Him when He comes again is not a spiritual matter of the heart's own preparation or lack there of but our sins.  Our sins can impede the work of God and in particular His coming again in power and glory to receive us unto Himself.  That which causes us to stumble or trip us up are precisely those sins.  Grace is what answers our urgent need (quod nostra peccata praepediunt).  Note here the parallel.  God runs to our aid while in our running we are tripped up and stumble.  This is how much we need His aid and succour (succurre).  We pray the Lord to accelero or accelerate (hasten) to come to our aid. 

Indulgentia means forgiveness.   This is precisely what the long-awaited Savior is coming to save us from: our sins and the damnation they deserve. So, we appeal to His pardon (or “indulgence”) and His mercy (or “propitiation”).

The Gelasian sacramentary (#1121) has this, addressed to the Son, in the first of its propers for Advent. The Gregorian sacramentary (#805) addresses it to the Father and places it for a Sunday after a winter ember vigil. The Gallican Bobbio Missal (#38) has it as a second prayer in the first Mass for Advent. The Sarum Missal has it for Advent 4. The Sarum Missal had four collects beginning with "Excita" (stir up) on Sundays before Christmas (Sunday next before Advent, Advent 1, 2, and 4).  Cranmer kept it for Advent 4, adding "among us" and "through the satisfaccion of thy sonne our Lord":

Excita, quaesumus, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni: et magna nobis virtute succurre; ut, per auxilium gratiae tuae, quod nostra peccata praepediunt, indulgentia tuae propitiationis acceleret.

Praepedio means “to entangle the feet or other parts of the body; to shackle, bind, fetter”, and thus “to hinder, obstruct, impede”.   Something that is “before” (prae) the “foot” (pes) causes you to stumble.  In the Lewis & Short Dictionary this prae-pes also means “swift of flight, nimble, fleet, quick, rapid”.  To the Latin ear, prae-ped hears this interesting tension of opposing concepts. During Advent the Collects have all kinds of movement -- rushing swiftly to a goal: venio (“come”), suc-curro from curro, (“run”), accelero.

Although somewhat wooden and not as poetic as Cranmer, we might translate the Collect:

Raise up Thy power, O Lord, we beseech Thee, and come: and hasten to aid us with Thy great might, so that, through the help of Thy grace, what our sins are hindering, the indulgence of Thy merciful favor may make swift [to aid or resolve].

So we prayed on December 22:

Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

This is the stuff that fills my mind.  Awesome!