Collect for Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for "The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany." It asks God, whose Son was manifested to destroy the works of the devil and make believers sons and heirs, to grant purification in hope and likeness to Christ at his appearing. In the 1928 propers it is joined to 1 St. John iii. 1-8 and St. Matthew xxiv. 23-31, so the Sunday gathers Epiphany manifestation, adoption, holiness, perseverance against deception, and the second coming of Christ into one prayer.

Text of the Collect

O GOD, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

[1]

The collect moves clause by clause through the Sunday proper. "Whose blessed Son was manifested" keeps the prayer inside Epiphany theology. "That he might destroy the works of the devil" names the purpose of that manifestation from the appointed Epistle. "Make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life" turns the Father's love into the Church's adopted status and inheritance. "Having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure" asks that eschatological hope become present holiness. "When he shall appear again with power and great glory" takes up the appointed Gospel and looks to the visible return of the Son of Man. The final clause is explicitly Trinitarian: the Son reigns "with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost."

The collect is therefore not a general prayer for moral improvement. It is a christological and eschatological collect: Christ has appeared to destroy sin's dominion, Christians are made children and heirs by grace, and the Church asks to be purified in hope until it is made like Christ in his kingdom.

Appointed Epistle

The appointed Epistle is 1 St. John iii. 1-8. The collect draws much of its language directly from this lesson: sons of God, hope, purification, Christ's purity, his manifestation, and the destruction of the devil's works.

BEHOLD, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

[2]

The Epistle explains why the collect begins with God's saving action before asking for human holiness. Sonship is bestowed by the Father's love. Christian purification follows from "this hope," not from self-originating virtue. The same passage that commands righteousness also says that the Son was manifested to take away sins and destroy the works of the devil. The prayer therefore holds together adoption, sanctification, and victory over evil.

The warning "Little children, let no man deceive you" also prepares for the Gospel. The Church's hope must be guarded against false claims about Christ and false versions of righteousness. The collect asks for purity because the people who will be made like Christ at his appearing are called to abide in him now.

Appointed Gospel

The appointed Gospel is St. Matthew xxiv. 23-31. It gives the collect's "appear again with power and great glory" its immediate scriptural setting: false Christs, false prophets, tribulation, cosmic signs, the sign of the Son of Man, and the gathering of the elect.

THEN if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

[3]

This Gospel gives the collect a watchful tone. The Church does not merely remember that Christ once manifested himself in mortal flesh. It waits for the Son of Man to appear again in a manner no false claimant can imitate: as lightning from east to west, with power and great glory, gathering his elect. The prayer's petition for purification is therefore also a petition for perseverance, discernment, and hope amid deception.

The Gospel also explains why the collect asks to be "made like unto him" in his kingdom. The final appearing reveals Christ openly, gathers his elect, and completes what the Epistle says has not yet appeared. The Prayer Book places present holiness under future manifestation.

Epiphany Manifestation

The 1928 Proper Preface for Epiphany gives the season's Eucharistic center: Christ manifests glory in mortal flesh in order to bring his people from darkness into light.

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.

[4]

The Sixth Sunday develops that same manifestation toward the last things. In the collect, the manifested Son destroys the devil's works and will appear again in glory. The light of Epiphany is therefore both saving and purifying: it discloses Christ, exposes deception, and forms the Church for likeness to him.

Morning Prayer gives the same Epiphany theme in its seasonal invitatory sentence:

The Lord hath manifested forth his glory : O come, let us adore him.

[5]

The collect carries that adoration into hope and discipline. The Church adores the manifested Lord and asks to live as the children of God who will be gathered when he appears.

Prayer Book History

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany proper has a distinct Prayer Book history. In the 1928 American book it is also used near the end of Trinity season when the calendar requires additional propers:

If in any year there be twenty-six Sundays after Trinity, the service for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany shall be used on the Twenty-fifth Sunday. If there be twenty-seven, the service for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany shall be used on the Twenty-sixth, and the service for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany on the Twenty-fifth. If there be fewer than twenty-five Sundays, the overplus shall be omitted.

[6]

That rubric explains why the Sunday is not merely an Epiphany afterthought. Its Gospel of the Son of Man's appearing also serves the end of the long Trinity sequence as a prelude to Advent. The same proper can look backward to Epiphany manifestation and forward to final advent.

The Church of England's 1662 text prints the same collect for the same Sunday:

O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life: Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

[7]

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere summarize the development from the older fifth-Sunday expedient to the Restoration provision:

Consequently some provision was needed for a sixth Sunday; which, as being seldom required, was supplied by a rubric:-- The sixth Sunday (if there be so many) shall have the same Psalm [Introit], Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, that was upon the fifth Sunday. Our present Collect, Epistle, and Gospel were appointed in 1661. They do not follow the old lines but are entirely new, and in fact they are designed to refer more particularly to the manifestation of Christ's glory at His second coming, because they are more commonly read on the second Sunday before Advent, than on the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany.

[8]

Procter and Frere's account is important for interpretation. The proper was not simply another inherited medieval collect. It was appointed at the Restoration and designed around Christ's second coming. That is why the collect so closely echoes both 1 John iii and Matthew xxiv.

Percy Dearmer gives the same historical point in a short account of the Prayer Book's materials:

Many of the Collects are of the fifth and sixth centuries, while three of them (Third Sunday in Advent, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and Easter Even) are as late as the Restoration and first appeared in 1662.

[9]

Dearmer confirms the late Prayer Book origin of the collect without weakening its Anglican authority. The Sunday is a Prayer Book composition shaped by Scripture and fitted to the Church's calendar.

Anglican Interpretation

David Curry, writing for the Prayer Book Society of Canada, gives a detailed account of why the Sixth Sunday was provided and how it functions in the lectionary:

This development was continued in the seventeenth century with the provision for a collect, epistle and gospel for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany made by Bishop John Cosin (The Durham Book, ed. G.J. Cuming (London, 1975), p. 109). This provision was included in the 1662 Prayer Book in order to avoid the repetition of the propers for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany or for both the Twenty-fifth or Twenty-sixth Sundays after Trinity in those years wherein the date of Easter required one or the other expedient.

[10]

Curry then states the principle behind Cosin's collect:

Cuming, moreover, observes with respect to the collect for the Third Sunday in Advent (generally ascribed to Cosin) that like the collect for Epiphany VI (also ascribed to Cosin) "it draws on both Epistle and Gospel, a point to which Cosin attached importance" (The Durham Book, p. 103, n. 145).

[11]

That observation exactly fits the 1928 text. The collect's first half draws from 1 John iii: manifestation, the destruction of the devil's works, sonship, hope, and purity. Its second half draws from Matthew xxiv: Christ appearing again with power and great glory and gathering the elect into his kingdom. The article should therefore be read as a collect over the whole proper, not as a freestanding doctrinal sentence.

Curry also describes the larger Epiphany sequence:

The Prayer Book design of the Epiphany season is to manifest the glory and set forth the divinity of Christ through an ordered sequence, comprising first, divine wisdom, and second, divine power (cf. the collect for the First Sunday after Epiphany, Cdn. BCP, 1962, p. 123). The manifestation of divine wisdom -- Christ teaching in the Temple of Jerusalem (Epiphany I) -- precedes the manifestations of divine power: Christ turning water into wine at the Wedding of Cana (Epiphany II); Christ healing the leper (Epiphany III); Christ stilling the sea-storm by his words (Epiphany IV); Christ gathering in the wheat and tares of the world for judgement (Epiphany V); and Christ in the glory of his second coming (Epiphany VI). These last two manifestations are conveniently designed to perform double duty at the end of the Trinity season in anticipation of the season of Advent (see note 40). The epistles exhort us to an imitation and a manifestation of Christ in our lives and, in the light of his divine majesty, to steadfastness and hope in him throughout the tribulations of the world.

[12]

The Sixth Sunday is therefore both Epiphany and pre-Advent in character. It completes the manifestation sequence by looking to Christ's final appearing, and it teaches that hope in his appearing must produce purification, steadfastness, and resistance to deception.

Theological Summary

The collect's theology can be summarized clause by clause.

"Whose blessed Son was manifested" ties the prayer to Epiphany. "That he might destroy the works of the devil" confesses Christ's victory over sin, falsehood, and satanic bondage. "Make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life" makes adoption and inheritance the basis of Christian hope. "Having this hope, we may purify ourselves" prays for present sanctification grounded in future glory. "When he shall appear again with power and great glory" turns the Church toward the visible coming of the Son of Man. "We may be made like unto him" names the final transformation promised in 1 John. The Trinitarian conclusion places that hope within the reign of the Son with the Father and the Holy Ghost.

In worship, the collect is used at Holy Communion with the appointed Epistle and Gospel, and as the collect of the day in the Prayer Book's weekly rhythm. It is strongest when heard with the whole proper: 1 John gives the language of adoption and purification, Matthew gives the warning and promise of the Son of Man's appearing, and the collect asks that the Church may live now as children and heirs who will be made like Christ in his eternal and glorious kingdom.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," "Collect for Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany" under "The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany"; Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Complete collect compared word for word with local source sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1078-1089, and with tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 900-909. PDF extraction spacing artifacts were ignored; the words through "Amen." agree with the independent 1928 transcription at Epiphany 6 Propers (1928 BCP), lines 104-111.
  2. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Epistle, 1 St. John iii. 1; Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation checked against local source sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1090-1106, against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 910-927, and against Epiphany 6 Propers (1928 BCP), lines 115-134. The hyphenated local HTML form "Whoso-ever" was rejected as a transcription artifact because the PDF extraction and EpiscopalNet transcription both print "whosoever."
  3. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Gospel, St. Matthew xxiv. 23; Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation checked against local source sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1107-1126, against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 928-949, and against Epiphany 6 Propers (1928 BCP), lines 138-160. Minor spelling and spacing artifacts in PDF extraction were corrected from the local HTML and EpiscopalNet transcriptions.
  4. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion," Proper Preface for Epiphany; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Holy Communion. Quotation checked against local source sources/justus1928/HC.htm, lines 479-485, and fetched copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/hc-1928.html, lines 479-485.
  5. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Order for Daily Morning Prayer," seasonal invitatory sentence "On the Epiphany and seven days after, and on the Feast of the Transfiguration"; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Morning Prayer. Quotation checked against local source sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 320-322, and fetched copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/mp-1928.html, lines 320-322.
  6. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," rubric before "The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity"; Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Wording checked against local source sources/justuspropers/ReadingsC.htm, lines 1883-1889.
  7. ↑ Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), Cambridge University Press 2006 edition hosted by the Church of England, "The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany," collect; The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/coe-1662-epiphany6.html, lines 8698-8704. The 1662 punctuation has a colon after "eternal life" and a comma after "reigneth"; the 1928 American text has a semicolon and no comma there, but the substantive wording is continuous.
  8. ↑ Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, with a Rationale of Its Offices, revised edition (London: Macmillan and Co., 1907), p. 531, chapter XIII, "Collects, Epistles, and Gospels"; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer: Chapter 13. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/procter-frere-ch13.html, lines 365-378.
  9. ↑ Percy Dearmer, The Prayer Book: What It Is and How We Should Use It, Churchman's Penny Library No. 4 (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., 1907), p. 6, "The Material of the Prayer Book"; Project Canterbury transcription, The Prayer Book, by Percy Dearmer. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/dearmer-1907.html, lines 65-71.
  10. ↑ David Curry, "Doctrinal Instrument of Salvation: The Use of Scripture in the Prayer Book Lectionary," paper dated May 11, 1985 and republished May 11, 2021 by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, part II, note 40; Doctrinal Instruments of Salvation. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/prayerbook-ca-doctrinal-instruments.html, line 481. Curry cites G. J. Cuming's edition of The Durham Book for Cosin's provision.
  11. ↑ David Curry, "Doctrinal Instrument of Salvation: The Use of Scripture in the Prayer Book Lectionary," paper dated May 11, 1985 and republished May 11, 2021 by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, part II, note 40; Doctrinal Instruments of Salvation. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/prayerbook-ca-doctrinal-instruments.html, line 481. The quotation is Curry's citation of Cuming's note on Cosin and the Epiphany VI collect.
  12. ↑ David Curry, "Doctrinal Instrument of Salvation: The Use of Scripture in the Prayer Book Lectionary," paper dated May 11, 1985 and republished May 11, 2021 by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, part II, note 62; Doctrinal Instruments of Salvation. Quotation checked against fetched source tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sixth-sunday-after-the-epiphany/prayerbook-ca-doctrinal-instruments.html, line 505. Curry is writing about the Canadian Prayer Book sequence, but the interpretive point applies directly to the shared Epiphany VI collect, Epistle, Gospel, and late-Trinity reuse found in the 1928 American book.

External Links

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