Here is the Collect for Monday of the 2nd Week of Advent
COLLECT:
Dirigatur, quaesumus, Domine,
in conspectu tuo nostrae petitionis oratio,
ut ad magnum incarnationis Unigeniti tui mysterium
nostrae vota servitutis illibata puritate perveniant.
This prayer is in Rotulus 13 which is published together with the ancient Veronese Sacramentary.
The dictionary we call Blaise/Dumas is helpful here. The verb dirigo in the passive is often used in Latin prayers as "bring onto a good path". It is a good Advent verb, for sure. It also has the connotation of rising straight upward. Conspectus, again from Blaise/Dumas, indictes the Lord’s "sight" and therefore, His presence, with a meaning of "favorable regard". A votum can be a "prayer" but it signals also "praise", something due.
LITERAL VERSION:
O Lord, we beseech You, may the prayer of our petition,
be brought into Your favorable regard,
so that the praises of our submissive service
may with unstained purity reach unto the great mystery of the incarnation of Your Only-Begotten.
SMOOTHER VERSION:
O Lord, we earnestly entreat
You to receive our prayerful petitions
so that the praises we raise in our service,
may reach even unto the great mystery who is the Your Only Son, God incarnate.
No, that doesn’t really do it either, but Father is tired today and has a lot on his mind.
There are a lot of directions we can go wtih this prayer, since each word is packed and the Latin is very "styled". The Latin is super hierarchical. Everything having to do with God is "upward". It is "courtly", as well, and sounds like the way we would come up and into the presence of a king. Being in His "sight" means being in near enough to be "regarded". References are indirect: We speak of the vota servitutis… things owed, or praises, due because of our state of being servants. We want our prayers to be heard, but we don’t just say we "praise Christ". We want our pure praises to reach the "mystery of the incarnation". Also, we start with petition, to make sure that God is seeing to it that what we offer is good enough. Then we move into praise, after purity has been established. So, this whole thing smacks of our hope to enter into the Beatific Vision, together with the realization that we must be pure to do so and only God can complete our purity. Interesting prayer.
Take a stab at it.
