The waters of the Jordan - collects for the Baptism of our Lord

The relationship between Christ's baptism and the Christian's baptism was a frequent reference in patristic commentary on the Gospel narratives of the Lord's baptism. In Augustine words, Christ was baptised "because He wished to do what He had commanded all to do". Chrysostom's exegesis - "that He might bequeath the sanctified waters to those who were to be baptized afterwards" - was echoed in the 1662 baptismal rite:

"the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin".

That relationship has also found expression in the collects for the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord since its (re)introduction to Western liturgies in the liturgical reforms of recent decades. The collect of the Latin Rite is the model for such collects:

"Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, qui Christum, in Iordáne flúmine baptizátum, Spíritu Sancto super eum descendénte, diléctum Fílium tuum sollémniter declarásti, concéde fíliis adoptiónis tuæ, ex aqua et Spíritu Sancto renátis, ut in beneplácito tuo iúgiter persevérent. Per Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum".

Unsurprisingly the ICEL translation (as usual) falls short of the Latin text, as do aspects of the collects in Anglican rites. The Roman Sacristan provides his literal translation of the Latin:

"Almighty and eternal God, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ, having been baptized in the Jordan river, You solemnly declared Him Your Beloved Son, grant to Your adopted children, reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, that it may always please You to preserve them".

ICEL, in common with the Scottish Rite 1982 (below), has no reference to the status of adopted children, an omission of some significance in salvific terms:

"Eternal Father, who at the baptism of Jesus revealed him to be your Son, anointing him with the Holy Spirit, keep your children, born of water and the Spirit, faithful to their calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord ...".

They also fail to include the reverential supplication concéde. The contemporary English and Irish Rites include both these aspects of the collect of the Latin Rite - the reference to our adopted status and concéde:

"Eternal Father,who at the baptism of Jesus revealed him to be your Son, anointing him with the Holy Spirit: grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit, that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord".

While superior to ICEL and Scotland 1982, this form of the collect also has deficiencies. The failure to refer to both Christ's baptism occuring in the Jordan and the Father addressing the Son as His "Beloved" - both of which are elements of the Latin Rite's collect - create a disjuncture between the Gospel narratives of the Lord's baptism and this form of the collect for the feast. If the Anglican compilers of the contemporary collects had attended to the 1662 baptismal rite and its reference to the Lord's baptism, of course, these deficiences could have been avoided.