Collect for Second Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)

Collect for Second Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for "The Second Sunday in Lent." It asks God, who sees human helplessness, to keep the faithful both outwardly in the body and inwardly in the soul, joining Lenten discipline to divine protection, sanctification, and persevering prayer.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect begins with God's sight: "who seest" names God's knowledge of the whole human person before it names any human need. The prayer's confession is not partial weakness but helplessness: "we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves." Its petition then unfolds in two directions, asking God to keep the body outwardly and the soul inwardly. Lent is therefore not treated as self-rescue. The Church prays for God's defence because bodily adversity and inward assault both exceed unaided human strength.

Historical Source

New Every Morning's source catalogue identifies the collect as one of the Sarum collects retained for Lent:

The forty-day fast is opened by Cranmer's great Ash Wednesday Collect - one of the most penetrating of the 1549 prayers - followed by Cranmer's Lent I and four Sarum collects.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere give the broader historical setting for the Lenten series after the first Sunday:

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 English Prayer Book received the collect at the Reformation. In the 1549 book it appears with substantially the same petition, though in the spelling and form of that edition:

ALMIGHTYE God, whiche doest see that we have no power of oureselves to helpe ourselves; kepe thou us both outwardly in oure bodies, and inwardly in oure soules; that we maye be defended from all adversities whiche maye happen to the body, and from all evel thoughtes which maye assault and hurte the soule; through Jesus Christ &c.

The 1928 text is therefore not an isolated American composition. It is a received Western collect, preserved through the English Prayer Book tradition and placed within the American Prayer Book's Lenten propers.

Clause-by-Clause Reading

The opening address, "Almighty God," is not ornamental. It answers the confessed need that follows: the Church has no power "of ourselves," but the one addressed is almighty. The prayer's realism about weakness is therefore held inside confidence in divine power.

Melville Scott reads that weakness itself as the plea:

Our very weakness and defencelessness is our plea. We have "no power of ourselves to help ourselves," and He Who knoweth whereof we are made sees, as we cannot see, the justice of our plea.

The petition "Keep us" is twofold. Outward keeping concerns "our bodies" and adversities that may happen to them; inward keeping concerns "our souls" and thoughts that assault and hurt them. The collect does not oppose body and soul as if one were irrelevant. It asks God to guard both, because human persons are threatened outwardly by circumstance and inwardly by temptation.

Scott summarizes the petition in those same two movements:

We pray for the defence of Divine providence for our bodies, and for the defence of Divine grace for our souls. We are outwardly and inwardly weak, and the weakness of the spirit is intensified by the weakness of the flesh.

The final danger named by the collect is not only suffering but "evil thoughts." In Lenten use, the prayer trains the worshipper to seek protection from inward consent to sin as carefully as from outward trouble.

Appointed Epistle

The Epistle appointed for the day is 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. Its opening calls the baptized to continue and increase in the Christian walk:

WE beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.

The Epistle then states the moral end directly:

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour.

The collect's concern for bodies and souls is sharpened by this reading. Bodily life is not dismissed as spiritually neutral; it is to be possessed "in sanctification and honour." Inward keeping is likewise necessary, since outward sins are prepared and nourished by inward thoughts.

Scott identifies this Epistle as a call to more than vague religious feeling:

The will of God for each of us is that we should attain to holiness: He will, therefore, give us the help we need to carry out His commands. Every individual Christian was entrusted by God with his or her body as a "vessel" or instrument to be used for the Giver.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel is St. Matthew 15:21-28, the prayer of the Canaanite woman for her afflicted daughter:

JESUS went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

The Gospel's conclusion answers the collect's prayer for inward and outward defence. Christ hears persevering faith and delivers the daughter:

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Blunt reads the Gospel, Epistle, and Collect as mutually interpreting one another:

The Collect is moulded in the same lines of thought, acknowledging the power of the Tempter to assault the soul by evil thoughts, and our own inability to prevail against such assaults without the aid of Him by Whom the Tempter was, and is overcome.

Scott also draws a practical lesson from the Canaanite woman's prayer:

True prayer must show sincerity of faith, perseverance and determination, reverence and humility; it will in due time be rewarded with victory. The woman of Canaan had faith not only in the power but also in the love of our Lord.

The collect thus teaches helplessness without passivity. The Church has "no power" of herself, but she is taught to ask, to persevere, and to expect defence from the Lord who overcomes evil.

Anglican Use

For worship and catechesis, this collect is useful for teaching Lent as dependence on divine keeping. Its doctrinal movement is simple: God sees the true condition of the faithful; unaided human nature cannot secure itself; body and soul both need divine defence; and evil thoughts must be resisted by grace before they ripen into disobedience. The appointed Epistle gives the call to sanctification, while the Gospel gives the image of persevering faith seeking Christ's help against affliction and evil.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Lent in the 1928 BCP
• A Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Ash Wednesday (1928 BCP)
• Collect for First Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Third Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Lectionary Central: The Second Sunday in Lent
• J. H. Blunt's Commentary on the Second Sunday in Lent
• Melville Scott on the Second Sunday in Lent
• Sources of the Seasonal Collects
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• 1549 Book of Common Prayer: Lent
• John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer