Collect for Second Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for Second Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer under the heading "The Second Sunday after Christmas Day." The proper was added in the 1928 American book and stands at the turn from Christmastide toward Epiphany: the Church prays that the light of the incarnate Word may move from gift received to holiness displayed in life.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect begins with divine action: God has "poured upon us" light. The image is not self-generated religious insight but grace given from above. "The new light" points back to the Christmas Gospel, where the eternal Word is life and "the light of men." Because the light belongs to "thine incarnate Word," the prayer confesses that revelation comes through the Son made flesh, not through a detachable moral ideal.

The petition turns that doctrine into sanctification. The same light received by the Church must be "enkindled in our hearts" and then "shine forth in our lives." The collect therefore joins inward illumination and outward obedience. Its Christmastide theology is practical: the Word made flesh enlightens the faithful so that their lives bear visible witness to him.

Appointed Epistle and Gospel

The appointed Epistle is Isaiah lxi. 1. It interprets the light of Christ as an anointing for proclamation, mercy, release, comfort, and restored righteousness:

THE Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Isaiah gives the collect its public and pastoral force. The light of the incarnate Word is not private consolation only. It sends good tidings to the meek, heals the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty, comforts mourners, and creates "trees of righteousness." The last clause, "that he might be glorified," explains the collect's final petition: light shines forth in human lives so that God's glory is seen.

The appointed Gospel is St. Matthew ii. 19. It follows the Holy Family out of Egypt into the land of Israel, then into Galilee and Nazareth:

WHEN Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

The Gospel makes the collect's "incarnate Word" concrete. The Son is not manifested as an abstraction but as the young child protected in history, carried by Joseph and Mary, brought back from exile, and hidden in Nazareth. The light shines through humility, danger, obedience, and fulfilled prophecy. That is why the collect can ask for the same light to shine forth in ordinary Christian lives.

Christmastide and Epiphany Light

The collect sits between the Christmas octave and the Epiphany season. Morning Prayer keeps Christmas on the Church's lips until the Epiphany:

On Christmas Day and until the Epiphany. - Alleluia. Unto us a child is born : O come, let us adore him.

The Holy Communion office then gives Epiphany a Proper Preface of manifestation and light:

Upon The Epiphany, and seven days after. THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord, who, in substance of our mortal flesh, manifested forth his glory; that he might bring us out of darkness into his own glorious light. Therefore with Angels, etc.

A related Proper Preface, appointed for the Purification, Annunciation, and Transfiguration, uses language especially close to this collect:

Because in the Mystery of the Word made flesh, thou hast caused a new light to shine in our hearts, to give the knowledge of thy glory in the face of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore with Angels, etc.

These Prayer Book parallels show how the Second Sunday after Christmas collect works liturgically. It does not leave Christmas behind, because the child is still adored before Epiphany. It also anticipates Epiphany, because "new light," manifestation, and glory are already being prayed. The collect is therefore a hinge: Christ is born in our flesh, his glory begins to be disclosed, and his light must be embodied by his people.

Historical and Theological Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere summarize the inherited seasonal movement that the 1928 addition intensifies:

From Christmas to Epiphany the design of the proper services is to set forth the humanity of our Saviour; and from Epiphany to Septuagesima to show the divine nature of the Son of Man by relating in the Gospels some of His first miracles.

Their account helps explain the collect's position. It belongs before Epiphany and so continues to "set forth the humanity" of the Saviour: Matthew shows the child returning from Egypt and dwelling at Nazareth. Yet its language of "new light" also prepares for the Epiphany disclosure of glory. The 1928 proper thus uses older seasonal logic while giving the remaining days before January 6 their own collect, Epistle, and Gospel.

Lancelot Andrewes gives a classical Anglican reading of the Incarnation that clarifies the phrase "thine incarnate Word." Preaching on Galatians iv. 4-5, he insists that Christ's divine and human natures are both confessed:

And so have we here now in one both twain His natures. "God sent His Son" - there His divine; "made of a woman," - here His human nature. That, from the bosom of His Father before all worlds; this, from the womb of His mother in the world.

Andrewes later joins "the Word made flesh" with Christ's solidarity in human nature and condition:

This day, Verbum caro factum, "the Word made flesh;" that day, "Him that knew no sin, He made sin," that is, made Him undertake to be handled as a sinner, to be "under the Law," and to endure what the Law could lay upon Him. And so now the thing sent is full; and fully sent, because made; and fully made, because made once and twice over; fully made ours, because fully united to us.

That interpretation guards the collect from a vague use of "light." The new light is the light of the Son who is truly from the Father and truly made of our nature. Because he is "fully united to us," the collect can ask that his light be enkindled within human hearts and shine out through human obedience.

Percy Dearmer's short account of the Prayer Book also supports reading this collect as Scripture turned into common prayer:

Now the Prayer Book is full of Holy Scripture, and it is the great link which the ordinary Englishman has between our own age and the age when the last book of the Bible was written. It carries on for us the Christian Revelation from the first century to the present day, and it gathers for us gems of Christian prayer and praise from the centuries that lie between.

The Second Sunday after Christmas collect illustrates that principle. John i supplies the Word and light; Isaiah lxi supplies anointed proclamation and restoration; Matthew ii supplies the historical child preserved and brought to Nazareth; the Prayer Book gives those texts the form of a short petition for inward grace and outward holiness.

Use in Worship and Catechesis

In worship, the collect is said with the proper Epistle and Gospel for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, and the 1928 comparison source notes that the same collect, Epistle, and Gospel serve the remaining days before Epiphany. In catechesis, it is especially useful because each clause can be taught directly from Scripture and liturgy. "Poured upon us" teaches grace as divine gift. "The new light" recalls John i and the Epiphany Preface. "Thine incarnate Word" teaches the Son's true divine identity and true humanity. "Enkindled in our hearts" teaches inward illumination by grace. "May shine forth in our lives" teaches visible sanctification, shaped by Isaiah's promised good tidings, liberty, comfort, and righteousness.

Read in its Prayer Book setting, the collect refuses to separate contemplation from conduct. The Church receives the light of the Word made flesh, worships the child born for us, hears the prophet's promise of restoration, follows the Gospel's hidden Christ to Nazareth, and asks that the same light be seen in Christian life.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Christmas in the 1928 BCP
• Collect for Christmas Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Circumcision of Christ (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Epiphany (1928 BCP)
• Proper Prefaces (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels
• The Order for Daily Morning Prayer in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• The Order for Holy Communion in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Lancelot Andrewes, Nativity Sermon IV on Galatians iv. 4-5
• Percy Dearmer, The Prayer Book: What It Is and How We Should Use It