The Shrovish Collect of Quinquagesima Sunday

Preces nostras, quáesumus, Dómine, clementer exaudi: atque a peccatórum vínculis absolútos, ab omni nos adversitáte custódi. Per Dóminum nostrum.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully hear our prayers: and having loosed us from the bonds of [our] sins, keep us from all adversity. Through our Lord.

The Collect bears a resemblance to the other two Collects of Pre-Lent. The protasis (first half) is almost identical to that of Septuagesima Sunday, and the apodosis (second half) likewise mentions deliverance from our sins. The plea for protection from adversity (adversitas) echoes the plea from the Sexagesima Sunday Collect for protection from all adverse things (adversa omnia).

The Collect, however, does not explicitly pray for deliverance from our sins but from the “bonds of sins.” No doubt the “our” is implied by the use of “us” in the prayer, but as Sr. Mary Gonzaga notes, the author may have wanted “sins” to be taken in a wider sense as everything contaminated by original sin.[1] Even the Blessed Virgin Mary could pray for deliverance from sins, insofar as She would want to be free of the entangling effects of sin all around her and to be kept free from all sin.

The apodosis has a particular order in mind: God absolves us of sin, then He keeps us from all adversity (or, to be kept from every other kind of adversity besides sin, since the Latin omnis can mean “the rest” as well as “all”). In Mark 2:5, Our Lord freed the paralytic from sin before He freed him from paralysis. Our worst adversary is sin.

Finally, intentionally or not, the Collect’s petition for absolution ties in nicely with the origins of “Shrovetide,” the three-day period of Quinquagesima Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday. Although popularly seen as a last-chance shot at merriment and mayhem before Ash Wednesday, Shrovetide’s name betrays its purpose: “to shrive” is to administer or receive the sacrament of confession. [2] Apparently our forebears thought it a good idea to be loosed from the bonds of their sins before entering into the arena of the desert fast where, like Christ, they might meet the devil in combat. Better to have less for him to grab onto.

Notes

[1] Sr. Mary Gonzaga Haessly, Rhetoric in the Sunday Collects of the Roman Missal (Ursuline College for Women, 1938), 45-46.

[2] See “Shrive, v.,” Oxford English Dictionary, 1a and 3a.