Collect for Fifth Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)

Collect for Fifth Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for the Fifth Sunday after Easter, "commonly called Rogation Sunday." It asks God, from whom all good things come, to inspire right thoughts and mercifully guide them into right action through Jesus Christ.

Text of the Collect

O LORD, from whom all good things do come; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The collect is compact, but its doctrine is exact. It begins with God as the source of every good thing, then prays for two works of grace: holy inspiration in the mind and merciful guidance in action. The prayer does not separate contemplation from obedience. The Church asks first to think what is good, and then to perform it.

Its placement on Rogation Sunday is important. The Fifth Sunday after Easter stands just before the three Rogation Days and Ascension Day. The appointed Gospel promises prayer in Christ's name; the appointed Epistle commands hearers to become doers of the word. The collect gathers both: Christian thought must be received from God, and Christian action must be guided by God.

Clause-by-Clause Meaning

"O Lord, from whom all good things do come" is both adoration and theological premise. Goodness is not self-originating in the worshipper. Good thoughts, good works, fruitful seasons, answered prayer, and holy obedience all come from God.

"Grant to us thy humble servants" identifies the praying Church as dependent and obedient. The collect is not the prayer of religious self-confidence. It teaches the congregation to ask as servants who need grace before they can even think rightly.

"That by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that are good" asks for inward illumination. In the older language of the collect, inspiration is not a vague religious feeling but the divine breathing by which the mind is turned toward what is good.

"And by thy merciful guiding may perform the same" carries the prayer from thought into action. The Church asks not only to admire goodness, nor merely to intend it, but to do it under God's merciful direction.

"Through our Lord Jesus Christ" places the whole prayer inside the mediation of Christ. This is especially fitting beside the Gospel for the day, where Christ teaches the disciples to ask the Father in his name.

Appointed Epistle

The Epistle is James 1:22-27. It gives the practical form of the collect's second petition:

BE ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

The collect's "perform the same" is James's "doers of the word." A hearer may recognize goodness for a moment and then forget. The collect asks for something steadier: God must guide the good thought into obedient performance before self-deception hardens around mere hearing.

James then defines pure religion in visible acts of mercy and moral separation:

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

This prevents a merely intellectual reading of "think those things that are good." Good thought is tested by bridled speech, mercy toward the afflicted, and holiness in the world. Rogation Sunday therefore prays for more than agricultural blessing; it prays for a Church whose prayer becomes obedient charity.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel is John 16:23-33, from Christ's farewell discourse. It begins with the promise of prayer in his name:

VERILY, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

The collect is itself an enactment of this Gospel. The congregation asks the Father through Christ for inspired thought and guided action. Rogation Sunday is therefore not only about asking for temporal needs. It teaches the Church how to ask in the Son's name, so that petition may be joined to joy and obedience.

The Gospel ends by setting that prayer amid trial and Christ's victory:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

This final sentence guards the collect from optimism. Good thoughts and good works are needed because the Church lives in a world of tribulation. The ground of prayer is not the world's friendliness but Christ's victory. The faithful can ask, think, and perform because Christ has overcome the world.

Historical and Anglican Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere place the Sunday in the Easter-to-Ascension sequence:

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.

That summary fits the Fifth Sunday after Easter closely. John 16 turns toward prayer, peace, and the victory of Christ before Ascension Day. James exhorts the congregation to the duties that answer Christian profession. The collect stands between them, asking that God inspire the thought and guide the deed.

The Sunday is also historically linked with Rogation observance. Procter and Frere note the Reformation-era survival of parish perambulation but also the absence of a separate Prayer Book office:

It has already been shown that at an early stage of the Reformation all other religious processions were abolished, except the perambulation of parishes on the three Rogation days before the Ascension. No office, however, was appointed in the Prayer Book for use on such occasions.

The 1928 American title, "commonly called Rogation Sunday," therefore marks a traditional association immediately before the Rogation Days. Yet the collect itself is not a harvest prayer. It is a prayer for the inward and outward grace by which God's servants think and perform what is good. The separate 1928 Rogation Days proper supplies the explicit agricultural and providential petitions.

Procter and Frere also print the Latin source for the Fifth Sunday after Easter collect:

Fifth. 'Deus a quo cuncta bona procedunt, largire supplicibus tuis ut cogitemus te inspirante quae recta sunt, et te gubernante eadem faciamus.'

The Latin makes the structure of the English collect plain: all good things proceed from God; the supplicants ask to think right things by his inspiration; they ask to do the same by his governance. The 1928 text preserves this older Western prayer in a concise Anglican form.

The 1662 English Prayer Book appoints the same Sunday, Epistle, and Gospel, but its collect reads "be good" where the 1928 American text reads "are good":

O Lord, from whom all good things do come: Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The difference is slight, but it shows the 1928 book receiving the classical Anglican collect rather than inventing a new prayer. Its American form keeps the same doctrine: God's inspiration orders thought, and God's merciful guidance orders action.

Anglican Theological Use

For catechesis, this collect is a short doctrine of grace and obedience. The Church cannot think good things without God's inspiration and cannot perform them without God's merciful guidance. Grace therefore precedes and accompanies the whole Christian life.

For preaching, the Epistle presses the collect into action. The sermon should not leave worshippers as hearers only. It should lead from right hearing to bridled speech, works of mercy, and purity from the world.

For devotion, the Gospel gives confidence. The believer asks the Father in Christ's name while living amid tribulation. The collect may be prayed whenever the Christian knows what is good in outline but needs mercy to think it truly and perform it faithfully.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Eastertide in the 1928 BCP
• Rogation Days (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Rogation Days (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Fourth Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Ascension Day (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• The Fifth Sunday after Easter - The Church of England
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, Internet Archive text