New John Paul II feast day prayer: it’s better in Latin

If you attended Mass yesterday for the newly instituted feast day for Blessed John Paul II, did you catch the secret messages in the opening Collect? They’re there—but they’re easier to spot if your parish celebrates the Latin Novus Ordo.

Here is the Collect for Blessed John Paul II’s feast day in English:

O God, who are rich in mercy
and who willed that the blessed John Paul the Second
should preside as Pope over your universal Church,
grant, we pray, that instructed by his teaching,
we may open our hearts to the saving grace of Christ,
the sole Redeemer of mankind.
Who lives and reigns.

Anything there jump out at you? No? Then try the Latin:

Deus, dives in misericórdia,
qui beátum Ioánnem Paulum, papam,
univérsae Ecclésiae tuae praeésse voluísti,
praesta, quaésumus, ut, eius institútis edócti,
corda nostra salutíferae grátiae Christi,
uníus redemptóris hóminis, fidénter aperiámus.
Qui tecum.

Embedded within the prayer are the titles of John Paul II’s first two encyclicals: Redemptor Hominis (altered slightly to fit the prayer’s grammatical structure) and Dives in Misericordia.

Photo via What Does the Prayer Really Say?