Collect for Second Sunday in Advent (1928 BCP)

Collect for Second Sunday in Advent (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for the Second Sunday in Advent in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. In the 1928 order of Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, it turns the Epistle from Romans xv into a congregational petition: Holy Scripture is given for learning, received through hearing and study, and ordered toward patience, comfort, and the hope of everlasting life.

Text of the Collect

BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Liturgical Setting

The collect follows the repeated First Sunday in Advent collect and is printed immediately before the Epistle, Romans xv. 4, and the Gospel, St. Luke xxi. 25. The Prayer Book therefore gives the day a double Advent emphasis. The Epistle teaches why Scripture gives hope; the Gospel teaches how the Church reads the signs of Christ's coming without surrendering to fear.

The Epistle begins with the same controlling words that the collect turns into prayer:

WHATSOEVER things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Gospel sets that hope within Christ's final appearing. Its command is not panic, but lifted heads:

AND there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

The collect is thus not a general prayer for Bible reading alone. It asks for the kind of hearing and digestion of Scripture that produces endurance and consolation when the Church looks for the coming kingdom.

Clause by Clause

"BLESSED Lord" addresses God as the giver of Scripture. The first clause, "who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning," is directly Pauline. It confesses that Scripture is not merely preserved as religious literature, but given by divine providence for the Church's instruction.

"Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them" moves from public worship to personal appropriation. "Hear" belongs first to the lessons read in the congregation; "read" extends that hearing into direct encounter with the text; "mark" requires attention; "learn" requires retention; "inwardly digest" asks that Scripture become interiorly received rather than outwardly admired.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the collect form as a concise public prayer that gathers the people's petition into a single utterance:

The typical Collect of the old Roman sacramentaries, from which collections a great number of the Collects of the Prayer Book is taken, has also a structure, which is markedly its own, being distinguished by unity of thought and terseness of expression.

The Second Sunday collect shows that terseness. It begins with God's gift of Scripture; asks for a disciplined reception of it; names the fruit of that reception as patience and comfort; and ends at the "blessed hope of everlasting life" given in Christ.

"That by patience and comfort of thy holy Word" follows Romans xv. The Prayer Book wording is not accidental. The collect asks that the Scriptures do in the congregation what the Epistle says they do: teach perseverance and consolation. In the day's appointed Gospel, those virtues are not abstract. They are needed when the world is shaken and the Son of man is revealed in power and great glory.

"We may embrace, and ever hold fast" gives the prayer a persevering shape. The hope is first embraced and then held fast. Advent is therefore not only an annual remembrance of Christ's first coming, but training in steadfast hope for his appearing.

The final clause, "which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ," prevents the prayer from treating Scripture as an end in itself. The holy Word gives hope because it bears witness to the saving gift given in Christ. The collect's end is not mere literacy, but everlasting life in the Saviour.

Prayer Book History

The collect is one of the English Reformation-era collects written for the first Prayer Book rather than a simple translation of a medieval Latin proper. Procter and Frere specifically connect the first two Advent collects with the appointed Epistles:

The opening Collects of the collection exemplify this. Those for the first two Sundays in Advent were composed in 1549, and it is noticeable that they were formed from the Epistles of the Sundays: the same is observable about other Collects of that date.

The 1549 form already contains the recognizable substance of the 1928 collect:

BLESSED lord, which hast caused all holy Scriptures to bee written for our learnyng; graunte us that we maye in suche wise heare them, read, marke, learne, and inwardly digeste them; that by pacience, and coumfort of thy holy woorde, we may embrace, and ever holde fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast geven us in our saviour Jesus Christe.

Percy Dearmer, writing for Anglican readers on the material of the Prayer Book, likewise lists the Second Sunday in Advent among the collects specially written for 1549:

The Collect of the Day is generally, as we have seen, an ancient Latin prayer translated from the Sarum Missal by Cranmer or another. Most are from the Communion Service of S. Leo (c. 450), or of Gelasius (c. 480), or of S. Gregory (c. 580). But nineteen [6/7] (including the First and Second Sundays in Advent, Christmas Day, Quinquagesima Sunday, and the First and Second Sundays after Easter) were specially written for the Prayer Book of 1549.

That history explains the collect's close fit with Romans xv. It is not merely assigned near the Epistle; it was composed out of the Epistle's theological logic. In the 1928 American book, the collect keeps that inherited Anglican shape while standing in the American proper cycle.

Anglican Interpretation

Anglican preaching and catechesis have often treated the Second Sunday in Advent as "Bible Sunday." Roelif H. Brooks made that identification explicitly in a 1926 sermon for the New York Bible Society:

TODAY--this second Sunday in Advent by reason of the wording of the Collect and the reference in the Epistle to the Scriptures, is known as Bible Sunday. For whether or not you fully appreciate the fact, this Church of ours is a Bible Church.

Henry Bailey, preaching at St. Augustine's College on the Second Sunday in Advent in 1858, drew the same practical implication from Scripture's appointed place in worship:

The daily services of the Church secure large portions of the Bible to be read by us or in our ears; but the absence of all intervals of silence for meditation during the time of our publicly assembling ourselves together, and the entire disuse of all antiphons, [7/8] bring about the necessity of giving additional time, either before or after, for fulfilling the duty of 'searching the Scriptures daily.'

Frank Lawrence Vernon, writing from St. Mark's, Philadelphia, in 1934, interprets the collect's "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" as devotional and hopeful rather than merely informational:

Here we have in three verses the record of our creation, redemption, revelation, means of grace and hope of glory. If we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it all, we may learn the patience of God, and taste for ourselves the consolation of God and find the Comfort of the Scriptures.

These Anglican witnesses agree with the Prayer Book's own grammar. The collect does not set Scripture against liturgy; it shows liturgy teaching the Church how to receive Scripture. It does not set public hearing against private reading; it joins both. It does not end with the act of reading itself; it prays that the written Word may lead the faithful to hope in the living Saviour.

Use in Worship and Catechesis

In worship, the collect is said as the appointed collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, with the First Sunday in Advent collect also repeated after the other Advent collects until Christmas Day. At Holy Communion (1928 BCP), the Romans Epistle supplies the language of "learning," "patience," "comfort," and "hope," while the Luke Gospel places that hope before the coming of the Son of man.

In catechesis, the collect can be taught by five verbs. The Church hears Scripture in the public lessons; reads it with attention; marks what God says; learns it as doctrine, warning, and promise; and inwardly digests it by prayer, obedience, and perseverance. The expected fruit is not cleverness but steadiness: patience, comfort, and a hope that can be embraced and held fast.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Advent in the 1928 BCP
• Collect of the Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for First Sunday in Advent (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels
• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer at the Society of Archbishop Justus
• Collects, Epistles, and Gospels from the 1549, 1552 and 1559 Books of Common Prayer: Advent
• Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Percy Dearmer, The Prayer Book: What It Is
• Roelif H. Brooks, The Bible
• Henry Bailey, Search the Scriptures
• Frank Lawrence Vernon, Locust Street Letters, Second Sunday in Advent, 1934