Collect for St. John the Evangelist's Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for St. John the Evangelist's Day (1928 BCP) is the appointed collect for December 27 in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It prays that the Church may receive divine illumination through the apostolic doctrine of Saint John, walk in that light, and come at last to everlasting life.

Text of the Collect

MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it, being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The 1928 wording is important. The visible text in the Justus comparative transcription preserves an older form, "being instructed" and "everlasting life," while its footnotes note that the 1928 Book reads "illumined" and "life everlasting." The Standard Book PDF confirms those two 1928 readings. The collect therefore begins not with a general request for instruction but with a prayer that God himself will shine upon the Church.

Appointed Readings

The Epistle gives the collect its governing image. John bears witness to the incarnate "Word of life," and then declares that the God made known in Christ is light. The collect's "bright beams," "doctrine," and "walk in the light" are not decorative phrases; they are compressed from the appointed Epistle.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

The Gospel turns from doctrine to testimony. The beloved disciple is identified as the witness whose writing stands behind the Church's knowledge of Christ. The collect asks that the Church be illumined by John's doctrine because the Gospel reading presents John as the apostolic witness whose testimony is true.

This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.

Clause by Clause

"Merciful Lord" grounds the prayer in grace before it speaks of knowledge. The Church does not seize light; it asks the Lord to cast it upon her. That corporate petition matters because the collect is not a private prayer for cleverness but the prayer of the whole Church for illumination.

"Being illumined by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John" names the appointed means of that light. In the Epistle, John's doctrine is not abstract speculation. It begins with what was heard, seen, looked upon, and handled, and then declares the message: God is light. The collect asks the Church to receive that apostolic witness as light for worship, belief, and conduct.

"May so walk in the light of thy truth" is the practical center of the collect. Procter and Frere note that this phrase was not inherited unchanged from the older Latin collect but was added in the 1661 revision:

For S. John: 'Ecclesiam tuam quaesumus Domine benignus illustra: ut beati Johannis apostoli tui et evangelistae illuminata doctrinis, ad dona perveniat sempiterna. Per.' The words, 'may so walk in the light of thy truth,' were added in 1661.

"That it may at length attain to life everlasting" completes the movement from grace to doctrine to conduct to glory. The collect is not satisfied with intellectual illumination alone. Its petition is that the Church's reception of John's doctrine would become a way of walking, and that this walk would end in the life promised by Christ.

Historical Setting

St. John's Day stands immediately after Christmas, with St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents. Procter and Frere interpret the placement theologically rather than merely calendrically:

After Christmas Day immediately follow the three Holy Days of S. Stephen, S. John, and The Innocents. S. Stephen was the first martyr; S. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved; and the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem was the first result of the Saviour's birth. 'Martyrdom, love, and innocence are first to be magnified, as wherein Christ is most honoured.'

They also note that the Reformation changed the Epistle for St. John's Day to 1 John 1, which explains why the collect and appointed lesson are now so closely joined around the theme of light:

On S. John's Day a new Epistle was provided from the opening words of his First Epistle to take the place of the old Lesson from Ecclesiasticus. In other respects the Lessons for these three days remained substantially the same.

Anglican Interpretation

Edward Meyrick Goulburn reads the collect as an example of how the 1662 revision sharpened an older Latin prayer. His interpretation is especially useful because it explains why the added phrase about walking in the light matters:

The old Collect had made mention only of two lights, the light of the Spirit and the light of the Word; the new one most aptly introduces a third light, that of glory, or everlasting life, to which the first two lights are conducive.

Goulburn then connects the collect's first two lights to the Holy Ghost and Holy Scripture. This guards the collect from two errors: treating illumination as merely intellectual, or treating spiritual light as detached from the apostolic Word.

The Word of God is a light no less than His Spirit. "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple." All pretence to divine illumination, independently of the written Word of God, is pure fanaticism.

Finally, Goulburn identifies the unity of John's doctrine around the theme of divine light:

The keystone of St. John's theology may be said to be God, and Christ as light.

The collect therefore has a clear devotional logic. It prays for the light of the Holy Ghost, received through John's apostolic doctrine, embodied in a truthful walk, and completed in life everlasting. In the 1928 BCP, St. John's Day is not only a commemoration of an apostle and evangelist; it is a school of ecclesial illumination, where the Church asks to become what John's writings proclaim: a people walking in the light of God.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Society of Archbishop Justus comparative transcription for St. John the Evangelist's Day
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Goulburn, The Collects of the Book of Common Prayer