BETTER THAN A SONNET

I'm a day late for this post, but as a born Prot the Nativity of the Virgin is something I have yet to learn to celebrate, and the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity is a celebration of a different kind.  Here is the glorious Collect, originally from Leo and revised by Gelasius the African (see on left), and gloriously translated by the Blessed Thomas Cranmer:

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving unto us that that our prayer dare not presume to ask, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

As Frederick Barbee and Paul Zahl say in their delightful book on the Collects, this one is "a treasure chest, truly overflowing". If you take it bit by splendid bit, and meditate on each, you have a rich day's thinking and meditating given to you. 1) He is always more ready to hear than we to pray: Ouch. At once wonderful and rueful. Really? No, we aren't bothering Him by praying too much: we bother Him by praying too little. Ouch. 2) He is "wont" -- used -- in the habit of -- giving more than we desire -- really? and there we are, always thinking that our prayers go unheard? -- and also commonly giving more than we deserve -- OK, that we can get into, we don't deserve an awful lot -- but still, both those sentences start from the idea that we are absolutely smothered in gifts from Him -- had we perhaps not noticed?
So it goes on. The main petition: pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy. I love the pouring -- there is something so huge and exquisitely excessive about that pouring down, like tropical rain. And what pours is the abundance. I love abundance -- indeed, I love excess. It may be part of having spent the first 4 years of my life in wartime, under occupation, and in permanent shortage. I love abundance. But in this case what we ask for is the abundance of mercy, which sort of brings us up short. Whoops. Could it be that we need mercy, not measured out in neat cups, but poured down in abundance? And what does that say about us?
Well, the point is mentioned right away: forgiving us the stuff of which our conscience is afraid. I do like that scared conscience. We all know about guilty consciences, or shabby ones: but sometimes the stuff  we have thought, said, or done (or left undone) makes our conscience quite simply afraid. And that needs forgiving. (Benedict XVI has some staggering paragraphs about forgiveness, what it is and how it works -- stay tuned.)
And then we ask for -- what? We don't know. But we trust Him to know. We ask him for the things we don't dare to ask. Love that? There is stuff we feel too damn small even to ask for. So we say to Him: give us what we don't dare ask for. Whatever it is. Sometimes we feel it, formlessly working within us; sometimes we feel too small to ask for the big things; but nevertheless, we stick our puny necks out and ask for -- that. Those. Them. You figure it out, Lord. Just remember, whatever It is, we need It. And on our mingy own, we fuck up. 
What a truly glorious Collect. And let no one say this is nasty old 16C English that needs to be modernised before anyone under 50 can"relate" to it. This is clear as spring water, and every bit as beautiful. Trinity Twelve; and today, on the night of the full moon, we can celebrate it as it deserves.