Collect for Ninth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Ninth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It asks for grace at the level of thought, will, and action: the Church confesses that no good thing can be done without God, and prays to be enabled to live according to his will.

Text of the Collect

GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]

The collect begins with "Grant," because its subject is not moral effort detached from grace. The first petition asks for "the spirit to think and do" what is right. Thought and action are held together: Christian obedience is not merely outward conformity, nor is it inward aspiration without embodied practice.

The confession at the center of the collect is deliberately strong. "We, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee" does not excuse disobedience; it names the dependence in which obedience becomes possible. The final petition, "may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will," gathers mind, action, and perseverance into a single prayer for sanctifying grace.

Historical Source

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere print the Latin source for this collect among the originals of the Sundays after Trinity:

Ninth. Largire nobis, quæsumus, Domine, semper spiritum cogitandi quæ recta sunt propitius, et agendi; ut qui sine te esse non possumus, secundum te vivere valeamus.

[2]

The modern 1928 Common Prayer source index identifies the same collect as part of the Sarum inheritance:

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Sarum

"Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful..."

[3]

This history helps explain the prayer's compactness. The English form does not simply request better conduct; it asks God for the Spirit by whom right thinking and right doing become possible. The older word "rightful," preserved in some earlier English forms and noted in the Society of Archbishop Justus 1928 propers source, is rendered in the 1928 collect as "right."

Grace, Thought, and Action

The Prayer Book Society of Canada commentary on the Prayer Book lectionary reads the collect as a prayer about the connection between inward desire and outward obedience:

Today's Collect causes us to reflect on the connection between thought and action.

[4]

The commentary then states the collect's doctrine of dependence in terms of the Holy Spirit:

God's Holy Spirit must be active in us each step of the way.

[5]

This is why the collect is both humble and active. It does not say that human beings are passive before God. It says that Christian agency itself is grace-enabled: good desires must be received, evil suggestions resisted, and right thoughts carried through into action.

The same commentary cites W. J. Armitage's interpretation of the collect in explicitly pneumatological terms:

The Holy Spirit is the author of good thoughts. He alone can help us to fulfil the commandment to love God with all our mind.

[6]

The collect's first clause therefore has a catechetical edge. It teaches the worshipper to pray not only for forgiveness after failure, but also for the Spirit's prior governance of the mind, affections, and will.

Appointed Epistle

The appointed Epistle is 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. The 1928 text begins with Israel's sacramental privileges in the wilderness and then warns against presumption:

BRETHREN, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

[7]

The Epistle then names the moral danger the collect prays against. It is possible to receive real gifts and yet not live according to God's will. The collect's confession, "we...cannot do any thing that is good without thee," stands against self-confidence as much as against despair.

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

[8]

Charles Kingsley, preaching on this appointed Epistle, interprets Paul's warning as a warning about grace received without holy living:

You may be Christian men; you may have the means of grace; you may come to the Communion and use the means of grace; and yet you may become castaways.

[9]

For Kingsley, the "spiritual Rock" is not an abstract lesson but Christ himself, the source of goodness and life:

The rock was a type of him from whom flows living water. As he himself said on earth, 'Whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give him, shall never thirst.'

[10]

The Epistle thus explains the collect's double movement. The Church must "take heed" and resist temptation, but the faithful God is the one who provides the way of escape. The prayer asks for precisely that grace: to think rightly, act rightly, and live according to God's will.

Appointed Gospel

The 1928 BCP appoints Luke 15:11-32 for the Gospel. The Society of Archbishop Justus source notes the older American Gospel from Luke 16:1, but prints Luke 15:11 in the 1928 column. The 1928 appointment therefore joins the collect to the parable of the prodigal son:

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

[11]

The phrase "when he came to himself" gives Gospel shape to the collect's prayer for right thinking. The son's repentance is not mere regret; it becomes movement toward the father. Thought, confession, and action are joined.

The father's reception then shows that grace is not grudging:

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

[12]

Read with the collect, the Gospel guards two errors. The prodigal cannot restore himself by natural strength, yet he is not told to remain in the far country. The elder brother has outward service, yet lacks the father's joy. Both sons need grace that reaches the mind, the affections, and the life.

Catechetical Use

The same collect also appears in the 1928 Offices of Instruction, immediately after the Ten Commandments and before the questions on the Summary of the Law:

Then shall the Minister say, GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[13]

This second Prayer Book setting confirms the collect's practical theology. After the commandments, the Church does not say that instruction alone suffices. It prays for the Spirit to make right thought and right action possible, and then teaches that the law is fulfilled in love of God and neighbour.

Liturgical and Theological Use

In the 1928 BCP, the collect belongs to the Communion propers for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity and may shape the offices and devotional prayer of the week according to the Prayer Book's ordinary use of the collect of the day. Its theology is especially suited to Trinitytide, when the Church prays for the grace to live out what has been confessed in the great feasts from Advent through Trinity Sunday.

The collect is therefore a concise Anglican prayer for sanctification. It teaches that the good life begins in divine gift, reaches inward thought and outward deed, is tested by temptation, is restored by repentance, and is sustained only "through Jesus Christ our Lord."

See Also

External Links

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "Collect for Ninth Sunday after Trinity," in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed pp. 200-201; verified against the 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page labels Sec2:ccvi-Sec2:ccvii, and compared word for word with the Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
  2. ↑ Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, with a Rationale of Its Offices, revised and rewritten edition (London: Macmillan and Co., 1907), Additional Note to chapter XIII, p. 553, "The following are the originals of the Collects for the Sundays after Trinity"; Project Canterbury transcription by Charles Wohlers.
  3. ↑ New Every Morning Anglican Fellowship, "Sources of the Seasonal Collects," section V, Trinitytide, "The Ninth Sunday after Trinity"; Sources of the Seasonal Collects.
  4. ↑ Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 132-133, excerpt for "The Ninth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  5. ↑ Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 132-133, excerpt for "The Ninth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  6. ↑ W. J. Armitage, The Church Year (1908), quoted in Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 132-133, excerpt for "The Ninth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  7. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Epistle. 1 Corinthians x. 1." for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 201; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccvii.
  8. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Epistle. 1 Corinthians x. 1." for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 201; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccvii.
  9. ↑ Charles Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, Sermon XIV, "The Rock of Ages," for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, on 1 Corinthians x. 4; Project Gutenberg eBook #11536, released March 10, 2004.
  10. ↑ Charles Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, Sermon XIV, "The Rock of Ages," for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, on 1 Corinthians x. 4; Project Gutenberg eBook #11536, released March 10, 2004.
  11. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Gospel. St. Luke xv. 11." for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 202; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccviii.
  12. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Gospel. St. Luke xv. 11." for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 202; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccviii.
  13. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "Offices of Instruction," First Office, printed p. 287; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccxciii.
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