Tuesday in Passion Week

If you've been following WDTPRS as you should, you know that Fr Zuhlsdorf has been analyzing the various Lenten collects each day and explaining what the Latin actually says as opposed to what the ICEL would like it to have said. The Blessed Cardinal Schuster unfolds the daily collects also in his Liber Sacramentorum, although some 100 years ago he didn't have an ICEL to contend with so he doesn't explicate the Latin grammar except occasionally. With or without a grammar lesson, I found today's meditation very affecting:

The Collect for Tuesday in Passion Week

Nostra tibi, Domine, quæsumus, sint accepta ieiunia: quæ nos et expiando gratia tua dignos efficiant; et ad remedia perducant æterna. Per Dominum nostrum.

May our fasting be acceptable to Thee, Lord; may it atone for our sins, make us worthy of Thy grace, and bring us never-failing health: through our Lord.

In the Collect we pray that God will accept our fasts, so that through their efficacy we may obtain such an abundance of grace that the final æterna remedia may be assured to us after the sorrows of our earthly pilgrimage.

We should note the order followed in the prayer. In the first place comes the expiation, for qui non placet, non placat and God may refuse special graces to him who has still a heavy debt to pay to divine justice. When satisfaction has been made, and the friendship of the soul with God fully re-established, we can then confidently ask of Him those particular favours which friendship alone can embolden us to ask, for they are vouchsafed to friends alone: Et adjicias quod oratio non præsumit. As, however, every grace which we receive here is but the prelude to the final grace, that of eternal glory in heaven, we must pray without ceasing that the favours granted to us on earth may be crowned by that which is their proper end and fruition – viz., the beatific vision in paradise.

". . .qui non placet, non placat." Ouch. Back to the fasting.