Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Feast of St. Mary, Mother of God

August 15 is the Christian Festival day commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ -- and thus properly called, as the Council of Ephesus (in 431) and the Council of Chalcedon (in 451) taught (and the Formula of Concord [1580] affirms), "Mother of God." This morning one of my friends, a priest in the Swedish Church, posted on his Facebook page the following prayer from the Swedish (Lutheran) Reformer, Olavus Petri:
O rena moder Maria, det är dig väl att du har funnit en sådan stor nåd i Gud, att Han i sin stora barmhärtighet och godhet ville utvälja dig att bli hans moder, skänka dig större nåd än till någon annan människa, lovad och ärad vare Hans eviga barmhärtighet och godhet, och välsignad är du, mot vilken han ville vara så nådig.
Google Translate renders it thus (with a couple of adjustments that I think make it more accuriate):
O pure Mother Mary, it is well with you that you have found such a great grace of God, that He in His great mercy and goodness would select you to be His mother, give you more grace than any other person, blessed and honored be His eternal mercy and kindness, and blessed are you, towards whom He would be so gracious.
While there certainly could be a more elegant English translation (perhaps someone knows of one), even here one sees a lovely prayer, no? Thank you, Father Fredrik Norberg.

Over at the For All the Saints blog, Todd Granger reproduces much of a brief essay on St. Mary from Philip Pfatteicher's book, The New Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints, where I was struck by the sentence that read,
More is known about her that about most of the apostles.
It is worth reading the entire essay here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

a priest in the Swedish Church, Is your friend a RC in Sweden or is this a Pastor in the Lutheran State Church-Or pehaps there is not Lutheran State Church anymore. And just a Lutheran Free Church?