COLLECT
Current
Father, your love never fails
Hear our call.
Keep us from danger
and provide for all our needs.
Forthcoming
O God, whose providence never fails in its design,
keep from us, we humbly beseech you,
all that might harm us
and grant all that works for our good.
AFTER COMMUNION
Current
Lord, as you give us the body and blood of your Son,
guide us with your Spirit
that we may honor you
not only with our lips,
but also with the lives we lead,
and so enter your kingdom
Forthcoming
Govern by your Spirit, we pray, O Lord,
those you feed with the Body and Blood of your Son,
that, professing you not just in word or in speech,
but also in works and in truth,
we may merit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Comments: Providence includes far more than just love; it suggests all-embracing control of the universe. In the face of this, humility is appropriate, a humility missing in the current version but evident in the forthcoming version of the collect. So too with the prayer after communion: in the first, our merit of Heaven is presumed and non-contingent. In the second, living a life of truth is essential in order to merit to enter Heaven. Recollecting the difference between love and providence, we also discover after communion in the forthcoming version that we are not merely to be guided by God but completely governed by God.
PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS
LATIN:
In tua pietate confidentes, Domine, cum muneribus ad altaria veneranda concurrimus, ut, tua purificante nos gratia, iisdem quibus famulamur mysteriis emundemur.
CURRENT:
Lord, as we gather to offer our gifts confident in your love, make us holy by sharing your life with us and by this eucharist forgive our sins.
FORTHCOMING:
Trusting in your compassion, O Lord,
we come eagerly with our offerings to your sacred altar,
that, through the purifying action of your grace,
we may be cleansed by the very mysteries we serve.
What the heck? How did "altaria," plural, get to be "altar," singular? Is this just because we're not supposed to have side altars any more — what's the deal? Well, surely the famed 1998 translation must have this right, eh?
1998:
With confidence in your mercy, Lord God,
we hasten to place these gifts on your holy altar,
that your grace may cleanse us from sin
through the very sacrament
by which we offer you true worship.
Er, no, "altar" is still wrong, but now we also have "sin" and "true worship," which equally have no place in the original. Maybe they got it right in 2008?
2008:
Trusting in your mercy, O Lord,
we gather eagerly with gifts at the sacred altar,
so that, through the purifying action of your grace,
we may be cleansed by the very mysteries
with which we render you service.
Nope, no help here either. And we have the added mistake of "by which we render you service." In the Latin, we do not render service *through* the mysteries, we render service *to* the mysteries. An important idea that shouldn't be lost, I would think.