This is the prayer for the blessing of the advent wreath issued by the Archdiocese of Manila
Lord God,your Church joyfully awaits the coming of its Savior,who enlightens our heartsand dispels the darkness of ignorance and sin.Pour forth your blessings upon usas we light the candles of this wreath;may their light reflect the splendor of Christ,who is Lord, forever and ever.
Please tell me if I am dyslexic or there is really nothing in there that prays to God to bless the wreath.
Why not just pray: "Lord, bless this wreath."
Compare this blessing courtesy of Fish Eaters:
O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
By the way, folks, this blessing is a traditional blessing by families who gather around their own house advent wreath.
This prayer looks more churchy to me. Don't you think?
Which leads me...
Which of the two are really a blessing?a. The Archdiocese of Manila's versionb. The Fish Eater's version
Vote by clicking on the Poll Box on the left side bar.
The Archdiocese of Manila's advent wreath blessing has bits of the old blessing from the old Roman Rite and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The Anglicans put the Latin into majestic English and preserved what we Catholics threw out with the Vatican II bathwater.
ReplyDeleteHowever as typical of post-Vatican II ecclesiology, the wreath has lost its sacramental character and this is now replaced by "us". Of course the wreath is not a sacrament in the strictest sense, but it is from nature and as such becomes a sign of God's grace. There is a sort of faulty understanding of grace here. The "us" is the end of grace which passes through created things like the advent wreath. I believe that the Post Vatican II understanding is a Protestant innovation not strongly based on Catholic tradition.
Anglicanism has preserved much of the old understanding even if the Anglicans were Protestant. As Reformation historian Diarmid McCulloch wrote "The Church of England has preserved much of what Vatican II threw out"
Also he writes that it was a disaster that the Catholic Church did not recognize what Anglicanism preserved when it reformed the liturgy and translated the Latin. If she did, the Catholics would have been spared the liturgical chaos of the 1970s.
It took 40 years and Pope Benedict XVI to right the wrong. Please pray that the Anglican Ordinariates will be the mustard seed that will restore all these old things made new.