Collect for Sixth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP)

Collect for Sixth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity. It asks God to pour love into the hearts of his people, so that they may love him above all things and obtain promises beyond human desire. In the 1928 propers it stands with Romans vi.3-11, on baptismal union with Christ's death and resurrection, and St. Matthew v.20-26, on the righteousness of reconciliation before worship.

Text of the Collect

O GOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer Book Setting

The Sixth Sunday after Trinity moves from the peaceable ordering requested on the Fifth Sunday to the inward charity without which Christian obedience cannot stand. The collect begins with promise before petition: God has prepared "good things" for those who love him. It then asks that the love required for receiving those promises be given by God himself, poured into the heart rather than manufactured by religious effort.

The appointed Epistle, Romans vi.3-11, explains why this love is not a general religious sentiment. The baptized are united to Christ's death and resurrection. The collect's desire to obtain God's promises is therefore rooted in baptismal participation in Christ:

KNOW ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The Epistle also interprets the collect's petition for holy love as a death to sin and a new life toward God. The Church asks to love God above all things because the old dominion has been broken in Christ:

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel is St. Matthew v.20-26. It prevents the collect's language of love from becoming inward and undefined. Christ requires a righteousness that exceeds external legalism, beginning with anger, contempt, and unreconciled worship:

JESUS said unto his disciples, Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

The command to be reconciled before offering the gift at the altar gives the collect a Eucharistic and ecclesial edge. Love "toward thee" cannot be separated from reconciliation with the brother:

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Clause by Clause

"O God, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding" echoes St. Paul's use of Isaiah in 1 Corinthians ii.9. The collect does not define the Christian promise by what the unaided mind can imagine. Edward Meyrick Goulburn therefore reads the opening as a doctrine of unseen divine gifts:

The doctrine of the Collect now before us is founded on St. Paul's quotation from Isaiah in 1 Cor. ii. 9: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him."

"Pour into our hearts such love toward thee" is a prayer for infused charity. It is not enough to know that God has prepared good things; the heart must be turned toward God as the supreme good. Goulburn connects this petition with Romans v.5, where the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost:

The petition of the Collect is founded upon another very important text of St. Paul, which is found in Rom. v. 5: "Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

"Loving thee above all things" orders every other love under God. Goulburn notes that the Sarum form included loving God "in all things and above all things," and that the later English form retained the stronger comparative phrase. The point is not contempt for created goods, but their right reception under God:

The aspiration of the Collect, as it stands in the Missal of Sarum, runs thus: "that we loving thee in all things and above all things." The first translator of these words left out "above all things."

"May obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire" keeps the petition from ending in bare moral improvement. The goal is communion with God and the fulfillment of his promises in Christ. Goulburn's devotional exposition makes that theological point directly:

It is God Himself, a living Person, who is here held forth to us as the object of our love, -- not "the good things which pass understanding," not "the promises which exceed all that we can desire;" in a word, not the gifts, but the Giver.

Historical Development

The collect is inherited from the older Western liturgical tradition. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere print the Latin source for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity among the older collects behind the Trinitytide series:

Deus, qui diligentibus te bona invisibilia praeparasti: infunde cordibus nostris tui amoris affectum, ut te in omnibus et super omnia diligentes promissiones tuas, quae omne desiderium superant, consequamur.

John Cosin's notes give the same historical judgment about the proper's continuity with Sarum use. Under the Sixth Sunday after Trinity he records:

Sarum habet eandem Collect., Epist., et Evang.

A modern Anglican source index similarly identifies the collect as Sarum in origin and gives its traditional incipit:

The Sixth Sunday after Trinity
Sarum
"O God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man's understanding..."

The Church of England's 1662 text preserves the same collect, with "them that love thee" where the American 1928 Standard Book reads "those who love thee." This shows the 1928 wording as a received Prayer Book collect rather than a new American composition:

O God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass man's understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Common Worship also receives this collect in traditional language, but with a notable restoration of "in all things and above all things." That modern use highlights the older Latin phrase which Goulburn discussed:

O God, who hast prepared for them that love thee such good things as pass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love toward thee that we, loving thee in all things and above all things, may obtain thy promises which exceed all that we can desire.

Theological Use

Clause by clause, the collect teaches the priority of grace in the Christian life. God prepares what human understanding cannot grasp; God pours love into the heart; God orders love "above all things"; God brings his people to promises exceeding desire. Its theology is therefore neither moralism nor quietism. The Epistle says baptism joins the faithful to Christ's death and resurrection, so that they may be dead to sin and alive to God. The Gospel says that love of God must become reconciled life with the brother, even before the gift is offered at the altar.

For preaching and catechesis, the collect can be read in four movements. First, Christian hope rests on God's prepared promise, not on human imagination. Second, holy love is given by God and received in the heart. Third, baptismal union with Christ makes that love a new way of life, not merely a feeling. Fourth, worship and reconciliation belong together: the heart poured full of love toward God must not cling to anger, contempt, or unreconciled alienation from the neighbor.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Sundays after Trinity (1928 BCP)
• Trinitytide in the 1928 BCP
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Church of England: The Sixth Sunday after Trinity
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Goulburn, The Collects of the Book of Common Prayer
• Sources of the Seasonal Collects