Collect for Ember Days (1928 BCP)
Collect for Ember Days (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for Ember Days in the American Book of Common Prayer of 1928. It makes the Church's prayer for vocations a petition to the Father, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the reconciling ministry entrusted to human beings in Christ.
Text of the Collect
O ALMIGHTY God, who hast committed to the hands of men the ministry of reconciliation; We humbly beseech thee, by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, to put it into the hearts of many to offer themselves for this ministry; that thereby mankind may be drawn to thy blessed kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The first clause names reconciliation as a ministry God has committed to human hands; it does not say that reconciliation originates in those hands. The next clause therefore asks for the Spirit's prior action—“to put it into the hearts”—before it asks that people offer themselves. The final clause gives the end of ordained ministry: not the enlargement of a clerical caste, but that humanity may be drawn to God's kingdom through Christ.
Scriptural shape
The collect's phrase “ministry of reconciliation” deliberately echoes St Paul. Its grammar keeps Paul's order: God reconciles in Christ, entrusts the message, and then makes an appeal through ministers.
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
The appointed Epistle supplies the mission horizon of the petition. Paul and Barnabas speak the word, and the text moves from proclamation to the Gentiles' glorifying the word of the Lord. The collect turns that apostolic pattern into prayer for those who will be called to preach.
For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord.
The Gospel makes equally plain that the Spirit's anointing is for proclamation and mercy. Thus “many” in the collect is not an abstract request for recruitment: the ministry sought is one conformed to Christ's own Spirit-anointed mission.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Ember intercession and vocation
The 1928 Prayer Book places this proper among occasional propers under the heading “The Ember Days: At the Four Seasons.” In the inherited Western pattern, Ember Days are quarterly fasts and prayers; in Anglican use they have a particular relation to ordination. The collect is accordingly the congregation's intercession for those who discern a call and for the Church's reception of their ministry, rather than a private prayer for an individual candidate.
In addition to the other days of prayer and abstinence, there are twelve Ember Days, three for each of the four seasons of the year, on which prayer is said for those entering the sacred ministry, and for all the clergy. A special Collect, Epistle and Gospel has been inserted in the Prayer Book for Ember Days.
This interpretation also guards the collect from being used as though it promised that every desire for ordained ministry is self-authenticating. It asks God to give the desire; it asks the whole Church to pray; and its purpose is the kingdom to which Christ draws mankind.
Historical setting
The relation of Ember seasons to ordination is old but historically developed. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the Four Seasons as having Roman and agricultural antecedents, spreading from Rome, and becoming recognised times for ordinations; their discussion cautions against treating the original seasonal observance and its later ordination association as one undifferentiated origin story.[6]
The nineteenth-century Anglican tract printed as The Ember Days gives a useful witness to the devotional logic later assumed by the American proper: the laity pray and fast not because clergy are detached from them, but because the ministry is for the Church's common good.
The subjects for Prayer on the Ember days will be the Church of GOD of which we are members; especially those who are called to bear office in the same; and of these, more particularly those who are either ordaining or being ordained.
In conformity to this Apostolical custom, the Church of England views with peculiar solemnity the times at which her Ministers are ordained; and invites all her members to join, at these sacred seasons, in prayer and fasting in their behalf.
Reading and praying the collect
The collect can therefore be read clause by clause as a theology of vocation. “Almighty God” confesses that the Church cannot manufacture ministers by its own power. “Who hast committed” identifies a real ecclesial office, while “by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit” makes clear that it is a gift sought from God. “Put it into the hearts of many” is a prayer for vocations, and “that thereby mankind may be drawn” measures those vocations by the reconciling and liberating Gospel heard in Acts 13 and Luke 4. Prayed at Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, or Holy Communion, it also gives lay people a definite part in the Church's discernment and care for ordained ministry.
See Also
- Ember Days (1928 BCP)
- Days of Fasting and Abstinence (1928 BCP)
- Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
- Ember Days in Anglican Worship
External Links
References
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “Collect for Ember Days,” under “The Ember Days: At the Four Seasons,” p. 257, transcribed by the Society of Archbishop Justus, 1928 BCP: Propers for various occasions.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated out of the Original Tongues (Oxford: University Press, 1769), 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, Authorized Version, Bible Gateway: 2 Corinthians 5:18–19.
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Ember Days,” “For the Epistle. Acts xiii. 44,” pp. 257–258, 1928 BCP: Ember Days Epistle.
- ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), “The Ember Days,” “The Gospel. St. Luke iv. 16,” p. 258, 1928 BCP: Ember Days Gospel.
- ↑ Edward W. Averill, Talks on the Prayer Book (Fond du Lac, Wis.: The Parish Press, 1929), ch. III, “The Church Year,” p. 31, Project Canterbury transcription.
- ↑ Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer: with a Rationale of Its Offices, rev. ed. (London: Macmillan, 1907), ch. IX, “The Kalendar,” pp. 332–333, Google Books.
- ↑ Anonymous, The Ember Days, Tracts for the Times, no. 14 (Oxford: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1833), section beginning “The subjects for Prayer,” Project Canterbury transcription.
- ↑ Anonymous, The Ember Days, Tracts for the Times, no. 14 (Oxford: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1833), opening exposition, Project Canterbury transcription.