The Sunday before Advent has long been known among Anglicans as ‘Stir-up Sunday’, the day for stirring mincemeat, cakes and puddings in preparation for Christmas. Its title is drawn from the opening words of its Collect in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people, translated by Cranmer from a Latin collect beginning Excita, ‘stir up’, which has been part of the Roman liturgy since the sixth century.

The Catholic liturgy, too, has kept this ancient text for the week before Advent, but the version in the current Missal from the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is much duller: Lord, increase our eagerness to do your will. It is good news that this is to be replaced with a version that, like Cranmer, recalls the peremptory crispness of the original: Stir up the hearts of your faithful people. Lord God .... It is unlike Cranmer and the Latin, however, in that the words ‘Stir up’ do not stand alone, and so they are less arresting, less memorable.

This new version is part of the revision of the Missal undertaken by ICEL, whose fruits are now being submitted to Bishops’ Conferences for approval. The bishops of England and Wales have voted to accept most of the prayers submitted, including those for the Masses of weeks in Ordinary Time. In so doing, they parted company with their brother bishops in the USA, who have raised objections to a number of texts. ICEL has become something of a tyranny, which individual bishops’ conferences are in effect powerless to resist.