Collect for Easter Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for Easter Day (1928 BCP) is the appointed Easter Day collect in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It prays the Resurrection as both a completed victory and an active grace: God has overcome death through his only-begotten Son, has opened "the gate of everlasting life," and must still go before and accompany the Church if Easter desires are to become actual obedience.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The 1928 text keeps the inherited Easter prayer but, in the comparative Justus source, also shows the American book's own concluding form: "through the same Jesus Christ our Lord." The Society of Archbishop Justus transcription marks this by placing an asterisk after "through" and adding the side note "through the Same Jesus Christ" for 1928; the 1928 Standard Book PDF confirms the full phrase. The collect is appointed not only for Easter Day but daily through Easter Week, so the prayer carries the octave as well as the feast itself.

This Collect is to be said daily throughout Easter Week.

Liturgical Setting

Easter Day in the 1928 BCP begins at Morning Prayer with the Easter anthems in place of the ordinary Venite. These anthems are not decorative seasonal material; they announce the paschal doctrine that the collect then turns into petition. The first is drawn from 1 Corinthians 5, the second from Romans 6, and the third from 1 Corinthians 15.

CHRIST our Passover is sacrificed for us : therefore let us keep the feast, Not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness : but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Cor. v. 7. CHRIST being raised from the dead dieth no more : death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once : but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin : but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. vi. 9. CHRIST is risen from the dead : and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death : by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die : even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Cor. xv. 20.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere connect these Easter anthems with the older Easter morning ceremony at the Sepulchre. Their account is important because it shows that the 1928 BCP's opening Easter proclamation is a simplified Prayer Book survival of older Western paschal worship.

Before Mattins on Easter morning a procession went to the Sepulchre, the host was taken thence and laid upon the altar; the Cross was then carried in procession to a side altar: meanwhile the Antiphon, 'Christ rising again from the dead' and its Verse were sung; then after a versicle and collect the Cross was again venerated. From this service are derived the present Easter anthems.

The Holy Communion Proper Preface for Easter states the same doctrine in eucharistic thanksgiving. It names Christ as the Paschal Lamb, interprets his death as the destruction of death, and joins his rising to the restoration of everlasting life.

But chiefly are we bound to praise thee for the glorious Resurrection of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord: for he is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world; who by his death hath destroyed death, and by his rising to life again hath restored to us everlasting life.

Percy Dearmer notes that Easter is among the great festivals specially distinguished by Proper Prefaces at Holy Communion. In the 1928 American book, this means the Easter collect is not isolated from the eucharistic rite: its prayer for everlasting life is sounded again in the preface's thanksgiving for the Paschal Lamb.

Some special days are further marked out. The Great Festivals (Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday) have Proper Prefaces at Holy Communion.

Clause-by-Clause Meaning

The address, "Almighty God," places Easter in the action of God rather than in human religious experience. The relative clause then gives the ground of the prayer: through Jesus Christ, God "hast overcome death" and "opened unto us the gate of everlasting life." The collect is therefore neither a bare remembrance of an event nor a general springtime prayer. It is a prayer made because Christ's Resurrection has changed the condition of human life before God.

The petition has two movements. First, God goes before: "by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires." In older English, "preventing" means preceding or going before. Secondly, God continues to help: "by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect." The collect therefore teaches that Easter obedience begins in grace and is brought to completion by grace.

The appointed Epistle supplies the collect's ethical direction. Because the faithful are "risen with Christ," they are to seek the things above, where Christ sits at God's right hand. The "good desires" of the collect are not vague spiritual wishes; they are the risen life of Colossians 3 turned into prayer.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

The appointed Gospel, John 20:1-10, holds the Church at the first discovery of the empty tomb. The collect's confidence that death is overcome is therefore joined to the Gospel's sober witness: the stone is taken away, the linen clothes remain, the beloved disciple sees and believes, and yet the disciples are still learning the Scripture that Christ must rise from the dead.

Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

Historical Development

The 1928 Easter Day proper stands in a complicated Prayer Book history. The first Prayer Book of 1549 made provision for two Easter Day Communions, with older material and a newly composed collect arranged across the day. Procter and Frere describe how the later Prayer Book tradition simplified that arrangement and reassigned the collects.

There was also provision made for two Communions: the first comprised the old Easter Collect, the Epistle of the Vigil Mass, and the Gospel of the following Saturday; the second had an enlarged edition of the old Epistle and Gospel of Easter Day, with a new collect formed from the Epistle; the Collect for the first Communion was to be said also on Monday, and that for the second Communion on Tuesday and on the following Sunday.

They then describe the 1552 simplification: the anthems became the Easter replacement for the Venite, one Communion set remained, and later revision extended the Easter collect through the week while placing the other 1549 collect on the Sunday after Easter. This is the background behind the 1928 rubric that repeats the Easter Day collect through Easter Week.

At the revision of the Prayer Book in 1552, the above two anthems, omitting the Hallelujahs, were appointed to take the place of Venite, and the rest of the service was dropped, as was also the second Communion. The Collect for the first Communion was appointed for Easter Day, Monday in Easter Week, and the Sunday after Easter; and the Collect for the second Communion was appointed for Tuesday in Easter Week.

The broader Easter Week pattern also explains why the collect prays not only for resurrection hope but for its moral effect. Procter and Frere summarize the Easter-to-Ascension season as a sequence in which the Gospels proclaim resurrection joy and the promise of the Comforter, while the Epistles press the duties that answer the Christian profession.

The joyful commemoration of our Saviour's resurrection, and the promise of the Comforter, are the principal subjects of the Gospels from Easter to Ascension Day; while the Epistles exhort to the practice of those duties which are answerable to the Christian profession.

Anglican Theological Use

The collect has a distinctively Anglican density. It confesses a high Christology, because the Resurrection victory belongs to the Father's "only-begotten Son Jesus Christ." It confesses atonement and new creation, because death is overcome and everlasting life opened. It confesses prevenient grace, because even good desires are placed in the mind by God. And it confesses sanctification, because those desires must be brought "to good effect" through continual divine help.

Read with Colossians 3, the prayer is especially useful for teaching Easter ethics. The Church asks to live out what it has been given: the risen Christ is already "our life," yet the faithful must seek, desire, and act according to that hidden life until he appears in glory. Read with John 20, it also teaches reverent faith before the mystery of the empty tomb: the Church does not manufacture Easter confidence, but receives the apostolic witness and asks God to make that witness fruitful in life.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Eastertide in the 1928 BCP
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Easter Even (1928 BCP)
• Collect for First Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Holy Communion - The 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Easter Propers (1928 BCP), EpiscopalNet
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Percy Dearmer, The Prayer Book