When it is said
In the Roman Mass book it is one of the prayers for any day. A supplement to the book also makes it the opening prayer of the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.
The Book of Common Prayer orders it for the last Sunday before Advent, about five weeks before Christmas.
Its few words can be said before any task you have been putting off.
Where it comes from
No author known
Where it comes from
Charlemagne asked Pope Hadrian I for the Sacramentary of St Gregory, the Roman book of prayers for Mass. A letter of the Pope, dated between AD 784 and 791, shows that Rome sent it. This prayer stands in that book, which the editor H. A. Wilson printed in 1915 from three copies made in the 800s.
Why it is called Stir-up Sunday
The Book of Common Prayer turned it into English as its prayer for the Sunday before Advent. That Sunday came to be called Stir-up Sunday after the prayer’s first words. People joked that the name was about stirring the Christmas mincemeat, which was usually begun that week. In time the day became tied to the custom of making the Christmas pudding.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662), the 25th Sunday after Trinity; Wikipedia, “Stir-up Sunday”, quoting the Oxford English Dictionary
In Latin
Excita, Domine, quaesumus, tuorum fidelium voluntates,
ut divini operis fructum propensius exsequentes,
pietatis tuae remedia maiora percipiant.
Per Dominum.
From the Gregorian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson (London, 1915), page 128, on archive.org.