Collect for Fourth Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)

Collect for Fourth Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for the midpoint Sunday of Lent. In the inherited Western and Anglican calendar this day is often called Mid-Lent, Refreshment Sunday, or Laetare Sunday. The 1928 collect keeps the penitential realism of Lent, but its petition asks that sinners who deserve punishment may be relieved by the comfort of God's grace.

Text of the Collect

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The collect has four movements. "Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God" begins in petition to the God who can do what penitence cannot do for itself. "That we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished" confesses that sin deserves judgment, not mere inconvenience or therapeutic discomfort. "By the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved" turns from desert to mercy: the relief is not earned by Lenten effort, but given by grace. The conclusion, "through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," grounds the petition in Christ, whose saving work alone makes such comfort more than sentiment.

Liturgical Setting

The Fourth Sunday in Lent stands between the opening struggle of Lent and the more explicit Passiontide emphasis that follows. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere summarize the old Lenten sequence this way:

The remainder together with the Epistles and Gospels, read during this season, are continued from the old offices. They set before us the duty of self-denial, and teach us to withstand temptation by recounting Christ's victories over Satan. The fourth Sunday is called Midlent Sunday, or 'the Sunday of refreshment,' probably because the Gospel relates our Saviour's miracle in feeding the five thousand.

The collect therefore does not interrupt Lent by ignoring sin. It refreshes Lent by asking for grace precisely where punishment is deserved. The 1928 American book retains the older Epistle and Gospel sequence: Galatians 4:21-end gives the image of the free Jerusalem, and John 6:1-14 gives the feeding of the five thousand in the wilderness.

The official 1662 English text prints the same collect, Epistle, and Gospel in the same appointed place:

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

This continuity matters because the 1928 collect is not a new American composition. It is a received Prayer Book form, placed at the midpoint of Lent to hold together honest confession and gracious relief.

Appointed Epistle

The Epistle is Galatians 4:21-end. It contrasts bondage and promise, Sinai and the Jerusalem above:

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

The collect's confession of deserved punishment is not contradicted by this Epistle. Galatians names bondage in order to proclaim freedom by promise. The Church prays as people who cannot defend their own merits, yet who are not left under the bondage they deserve. The comfort of grace is the comfort of being made children of promise.

Melville Scott reads the Epistle as adoption by grace rather than a bargain struck by human effort:

The word covenant practically means relation, or position, and a covenant of grace a relation or position of grace. The word conveys no idea of mutual bargain or condition in either case. We are what God has made us.

The Epistle also explains why the collect asks for relief rather than self-excuse. The children of promise do not deny sin; they receive freedom as grace. Lent remains penitential, but its discipline is the discipline of sons rather than the despair of slaves.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel is St. John 6:1-14, the feeding of the five thousand. The 1928 BCP begins the appointed passage with the multitude following Christ and the Passover near:

Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

The Gospel then sets human insufficiency beside Christ's provision:

Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?

The miracle answers the collect's prayer for merciful relief. The crowd is not relieved by its adequacy, planning, or merit. Christ gives what the disciples cannot provide:

And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

John Henry Blunt makes explicit the connection between the collect, Epistle, and Gospel:

The "comfort" of the Collect, the "free Jerusalem" springing out of the bondage of Sinai of the Epistle, and the Feast in the midst of the wilderness, all point the same way; as also does the ancient Officium or Introit.

Blunt also gives the Gospel a sacramental and pastoral reading:

Thus the mighty work of Christ in the midst of the wilderness is set before His Church in the midst of Lent as a sure token that the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; and that both fasting and abundance are at His command: and still more as an earnest of that Divine gift the "Bread from Heaven," which He distributes to His people in the wilderness of this world, by the hands of ministers, for their spiritual refreshment and strength.

The Gospel therefore gives concrete shape to "the comfort of thy grace." The comfort is not softness toward sin. It is Christ's merciful provision in the wilderness, where fasting, hunger, and helplessness are real.

Clause-by-Clause Theology

"Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God" makes the prayer entirely dependent on divine initiative. The collect does not begin with human achievement; it begins with request. Its grammar is important: the Church asks God to grant relief, not merely to approve existing Lenten resolve.

"For our evil deeds" prevents a sentimental reading of Refreshment Sunday. The day may be a Sunday of refreshment, but the refreshment is given to sinners. The confession also guards against treating Lent as self-improvement detached from repentance.

"Do worthily deserve to be punished" states the moral seriousness of sin in direct Prayer Book language. It echoes the realism of the penitential season: guilt is not accidental, and divine justice is not imaginary. This line makes the later word "mercy" necessary.

"By the comfort of thy grace" names the source of true relief. Scott summarizes the day's transition from struggle to grace:

We pass, in fact, from the Sundays of temptation to a Sunday of grace, which is brought before us in two aspects.

"May mercifully be relieved" is the collect's main petition. The relief includes forgiveness, sustaining grace, and the refreshment pictured in John 6. Scott draws that application from the Gospel:

Our Lord would have us feel our poverty and inability in order that we may be driven to turn to Him for relief.

The final words, "through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," gather the entire Sunday into Christ. The Epistle gives freedom through the promise; the Gospel gives bread through Christ's hands; the collect asks for relief through the same Lord and Saviour.

Anglican Use

In Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion, this collect teaches the congregation to confess sin without despair. It also gives catechetical help for the middle of Lent. The Church does not move from penitence to self-congratulation, but from penitence to grace.

For preaching and teaching, the central connections are plain. The collect supplies penitential honesty. Galatians 4 supplies filial freedom: the baptized are children of promise, not slaves under bondage. John 6 supplies gracious relief: Christ feeds the hungry in the wilderness. The day is therefore well named Refreshment Sunday, provided its refreshment is understood as mercy for sinners and strength for continued Lenten obedience.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Lent in the 1928 BCP
• Collect for Third Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Fifth Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Lectionary Central: The Fourth Sunday in Lent
• J. H. Blunt's Commentary on the Fourth Sunday in Lent
• Melville Scott on the Fourth Sunday in Lent
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• 1662 Book of Common Prayer: The Fourth Sunday in Lent