Collect for A Saint's Day (1928 BCP)
Collect for A Saint's Day (1928 BCP) is the common provision in the American 1928 Book of Common Prayer for the commemoration of a saint for whom the book supplies no proper collect, epistle, and gospel. It gives thanks for God's grace at work in the saints and asks that the Church may receive the faith and love displayed in their lives. The prayer is addressed to God, and it ends through Jesus Christ; it asks for imitation, not a prayer to the saint.
Text of the Collect
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost enkindle the name of thy love in the hearts of the Saints; Grant to us, thy humble servants, the same faith and power of love; that, as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may profit by their examples; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The complete collect above was compared word for word with the Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, and with the 1928 Standard Book facsimile, p. 258. The older idiom “the name of thy love” is therefore retained rather than silently modernized. Its clauses move in a deliberate order: God is confessed as the source of sanctity; the congregation asks for the same faith and love; then it asks that joy in the saints' completed course may become practical learning from their example. “Through Jesus Christ” locates both the saints' triumph and the Church's petition in Christ rather than in an independent human achievement.
The alternative form and its Scripture
The Prayer Book immediately offers an alternative which permits the particular saint to be named. It makes its biblical allusion unmistakable:
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast called us to faith in thee, and hast compassed us about with so great a cloud of witnesses; Grant that we, encouraged by the good examples of thy Saints, and especially of thy servant [Saint ——], may persevere in running the race that is set before us, until at length, through thy mercy, we, with them, attain to thine eternal joy; through him who is the author and finisher of our faith, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The alternative does not merely add a name to a general sentiment. It draws its images—witnesses, race, perseverance, and Christ as finisher—from the appointed epistle:
Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
Thus the “examples” in both forms are not a substitute for Christ. Hebrews presents the witnesses around a race whose goal is fixed by looking to Jesus. The collect accordingly asks not for self-made admiration but for God's gift of “the same faith and power of love,” and the alternative explicitly says that final joy is reached “through thy mercy.”
The Gospel and holy love
The appointed Gospel prevents the language of triumph from becoming mere private moral success. In the judgment of the Son of Man, service to the hungry, stranger, naked, sick, and imprisoned is received as service done to Christ:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.
Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
The collect's “power of love” is therefore illuminated by the Gospel's concrete works of mercy. The Church rejoices in the saints' triumphs precisely in order to be formed into this Christ-directed love of neighbour. The collect does not canonize a type of personality; it asks God to reproduce the faith and love that the readings locate in union with Christ and service of his brethren.
Prayer Book setting and interpretation
The common form answers a practical calendrical need. Edward W. Averill, writing soon after the American revision, explains the distinction between days with their own propers and saints for whom a common is required:
The Red Letter Saints were those of the New Testament and had a special Collect, Epistle and Gospel in the Prayer Book. The Black Letter Saints which appear in the English Calendar are Saints of later days ... and these do not have any special Collect, Epistle and Gospel. However, a new Collect, Epistle and Gospel has now been provided in our Prayer Book with a blank space where the name of any Saint may be inserted. This is called the “Common” of the Saints.
Averill immediately states the devotional logic of the provision:
The observance of Saints Days is for the very practical purpose of keeping before our minds their good examples, and deriving from them the inspiration of their devotion and self denial.
That explanation closely fits the collect's petition to “profit by their examples,” while its wording safeguards grace: God kindles love, grants faith and power, and brings the saints and the Church to joy through mercy. It is a corporate prayer, not a biography in miniature.
The prayer's short, concentrated form also belongs to the wider Anglican account of a collect. Anthony Sparrow describes a collect as the priest's gathering and offering of the people's devotions:
The Priest doth herein Collect the Devotions of the people, and offer them up to God ... they all joyning their assent and saying Amen to it.
This helps explain why the prayer speaks in the plural—“Grant to us”—and why its final Amen matters. At Holy Communion, and wherever the collect of the day is used according to the Prayer Book's order, the congregation's Amen makes the petition its own: that the Church may remember a saint truthfully, look to Christ as the author and finisher of faith, and receive grace to love in deeds.
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
- Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
- Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
External Links
- 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels
- Edward W. Averill, Talks on the Prayer Book (1929)
- Anthony Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer (1672)
References
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1928 Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (Standard Book, New York: 1928), “Collect for A Saint's Day,” p. 258, 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (PDF).
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, New York: 1928), “A Saint’s Day,” p. 258, alternative collect, 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (PDF).
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, New York: 1928), “A Saint’s Day,” appointed Epistle, Hebrews xii. 1–2, p. 258, 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (PDF).
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, New York: 1928), “A Saint’s Day,” appointed Gospel, St. Matthew xxv. 34–35, p. 258, 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (PDF).
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (Standard Book, New York: 1928), “A Saint’s Day,” appointed Gospel, St. Matthew xxv. 40, p. 258, 1928 Standard Book: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels (PDF).
- ↑ Edward W. Averill, Talks on the Prayer Book (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin: The Parish Press, 1929), chapter II, “Saints Days,” pp. 17–18, transcribed by Wayne Kempton for Project Canterbury, “Talks on the Prayer Book”.
- ↑ Edward W. Averill, Talks on the Prayer Book (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin: The Parish Press, 1929), chapter II, “Saints Days,” p. 17, transcribed by Wayne Kempton for Project Canterbury, “Talks on the Prayer Book”.
- ↑ Anthony Sparrow, D.D., A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer (London: 1672), “The Collects,” Project Canterbury transcription, “A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer: The Collects”.