COLLECT
Cordibus nostris, quaesumus, Domine,
gratiam tuam benignus infunde,
ut ab humanis semper retrahamur excessibus,
et monitis inhaerere valeamus, te largiente, caelestibus.
This prayer is in the ancient Veronese Sacramentary in the month of December, which was a fast time, of course: Cordibus nostris, quaesumus, domine, benignus infunde, ut sicut ab escis corporalibus temperamus, ita sensos quoque nostros a noxio retrahamus excessu. In the Gelasian it was given for Tuesday of Lent, which I am not sure. In the pre-Conciliar Roman Missal a predecessor was found on Friday of Passion Week: Cordibus nostris, quaesumus, Domine, gratiam tuam benignus infunde : ut peccata nostra castigatione voluntaria cohibentes, temporaliter potius maceremur, quam supplices deputemur aeternis.
For inhaereo, which is "to stick in, to stick, hang, or cleave to, to adhere to, inhere in" and it is constructed with the dative. I like "cleave to",
because there is an echo of the spousal relationship of God and His Church in the word.
LITERAL TRANSLATION
O Lord, we beg, kindly pour
Your grace into our hearts,
so that we may always be drawn back from human aberrations,
and we may be strong enough, you making it possible, to cleave to heavenly admonishings.
God admonished our First Parents not to eat of the fruit of the tree. Yet, because of the wiles of the Enemy, they turned their will from God’s command and made the choice to decide their own good and evil. Now, because of the rupture with God, our intellect and will is gravely wounded, still good, but wounded. We can still reason to what what is good and right and true by means of the tangle of our minds and through the help of different kinds of authority. Then our will must make the choice to grasp what is good and right and true. Our intellect and will need the necessary help of grace.
All good things come from God. When we make the choice to grasp hold of those things, God makes our hands strong enough for the grasping. Together we bring to completion those things He began. So, God crowns His own works in us, so that they are simultaneously His and ours.
