Collect for St. Matthew (1928 BCP)
Collect for St. Matthew (1928 BCP) is the appointed collect for Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, on September 21 in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The prayer remembers Christ's call of Matthew "from the receipt of custom" and asks for grace to renounce covetous desire, disordered love of riches, and the divided heart that cannot follow Christ freely.
Text of the Collect
O ALMIGHTY God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist; Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches, and to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.
The collect has three movements. First, it names the event: Christ called Matthew from the "receipt of custom," the tax office in the appointed Gospel. Secondly, it turns Matthew's conversion into the Church's petition: "Grant us grace to forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches." Thirdly, it defines the positive end of repentance: "to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ." The prayer is therefore not only a moral warning against greed; it is a petition for the grace that frees a sinner to follow the Lord who called him.
Appointed Epistle
The Epistle, 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, places Matthew's feast under the theology of apostolic ministry. The apostolic preacher does not preach himself, and he does not handle the Word deceitfully. This closely matches the collect's contrast between covetous desire and following Christ.
THEREFORE seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully.
The collect's request to forsake covetous desire is not a merely negative discipline. In the Epistle, renunciation opens into the manifestation of truth and the light of Christ.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts.
This explains why the collect speaks of grace before it speaks of forsaking. Matthew is not presented as a self-reforming moralist, but as a man summoned by Christ and drawn into apostolic witness by mercy.
Appointed Gospel
The Gospel is Matthew 9:9-13, the call of Matthew and Christ's table fellowship with publicans and sinners. The opening verse supplies the collect's exact narrative image.
AND as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
The collect's penitential petition is also interpreted by the end of the Gospel. Jesus does not call Matthew because Matthew is already righteous; he calls sinners to repentance and gathers them under mercy.
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Read this way, the collect is a direct prayer of conversion. "Covetous desires" and "inordinate love of riches" are not incidental vices. They name the old attachment from which Matthew is called away, and they also name a temptation still present in the Church that prays the collect.
Prayer Book History
The St. Matthew collect belongs to the Prayer Book's inherited holy-day cycle. A modern source-origin table for the 1928 Prayer Book identifies the collect as part of the first English Prayer Book tradition.
Saint Matthew the Apostle
1549 - and Epistle
"O Almighty God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom to be an Apostle and Evangelist..."
This history matters for interpretation. The collect is not a generic saint's-day formula with Matthew's name inserted. Its wording is tied to the Gospel's particular scene and to the apostolic ministry described in the Epistle.
Anglican Interpretation
Isaac Williams, in a nineteenth-century Anglican sermon on the St. Matthew propers, explicitly reads the Epistle and Gospel together with the collect.
This, taken together with the Gospel, affords us an instructive lesson, which by her Collect the Church has turned into a prayer.
Williams' reading supports the article's basic claim: the collect is not simply about Matthew's biography, but about the Church learning to pray the scriptural pattern of renunciation, mercy, and following.
Robert Crouse likewise reads the St. Matthew propers through the relation between vocation and illumination. His sermon emphasizes that the appointed Epistle makes the call of Matthew a vision of Christ's glory, not merely a change of occupation.
The burning coals of Ezekiel, the bright fire, the lamps and the lightening, have all come into focus; the images have coalesced.
Crouse's phrase points back to 2 Corinthians 4:6, where God shines in the heart "to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The collect's final petition, "to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ," is therefore a prayer to be drawn by that light.
Clause-by-Clause Reading
"O Almighty God, who by thy blessed Son didst call Matthew from the receipt of custom" roots the prayer in Christ's initiative. Matthew is found at the tax table, not at a place of religious achievement.
"To be an Apostle and Evangelist" joins vocation and witness. Matthew is called from one office into another: from the service of custom and gain into apostolic testimony to Christ.
"Grant us grace" is the hinge of the collect. The Church does not assume that it can abandon false loves by natural strength. It asks for grace because the same mercy that called Matthew must convert the affections of the faithful.
"To forsake all covetous desires, and inordinate love of riches" applies Matthew's call to every worshipper. The petition does not condemn money as such; it condemns disordered desire and love that compete with obedience to Christ.
"And to follow the same thy Son Jesus Christ" gives the collect its positive end. The Church asks not merely to leave sin behind, but to follow Christ, whose mercy calls sinners and whose light becomes the content of apostolic preaching.
Use in Worship
In the 1928 BCP, St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, is a fixed holy day on September 21. The collect is appointed with 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 and Matthew 9:9-13 in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels. It may be used at Holy Communion and with the daily offices according to the calendar and rubrics.
Devotionally, the collect is especially apt for prayers about vocation, repentance, stewardship, and the right use of possessions. It asks that the call of Christ would reorder desire, free the conscience from the love of riches, and make the Church ready to preach not itself, but "Christ Jesus the Lord."
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
- Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
- Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
- Saints' Days in the 1928 BCP
- Saint Matthew's Day in Anglican Worship
External Links
- 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
- Justus Anglican, 1928 BCP propers for St. Matthew
- Isaac Williams, "The Good Exchange"
- Robert Crouse, "The Calling of Saint Matthew"
References
- ↑ Collect for St. Matthew; Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, identified here as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist [September 21], p. 250; 1928 Common Prayer, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book". Complete collect compared word for word with the Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, and with the Standard Book PDF text, p. 250. The Society of Archbishop Justus transcription agrees with the complete collect through
Amen.; line-wrap hyphenation in the PDF has been silently normalized. - ↑ Epistle for St. Matthew, 2 Corinthians 4:1-2, Authorized Version text as appointed in Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist [September 21], pp. 250-251; 1928 Common Prayer, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book". Quotation checked against the Standard Book PDF, pp. 250-251.
- ↑ Epistle for St. Matthew, 2 Corinthians 4:5-6, Authorized Version text as appointed in Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist [September 21], p. 251; 1928 Common Prayer, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book". The transcription spelling "know-ledge" normalized to "knowledge" from the Standard Book.
- ↑ Gospel for St. Matthew, St. Matthew 9:9, Authorized Version text as appointed in Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist [September 21], p. 251; 1928 Common Prayer, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book".
- ↑ Gospel for St. Matthew, St. Matthew 9:12-13, Authorized Version text as appointed in Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist [September 21], p. 251; 1928 Common Prayer, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book". The Standard Book comma after "mercy" is followed.
- ↑ New Every Morning Anglican Fellowship, "Sources of the Seasonal Collects," BCP Reference, section IX, "The Holy Days of Apostles and Saints," source-origin table drawing on The Lay Folks' History of the Liturgy, Appendix, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," pp. 290-309; 1928 Common Prayer, "Sources of the Seasonal Collects". Quotation checked against the live page.
- ↑ Isaac Williams, "The Good Exchange," in Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year, vol. 2, Trinity Sunday to All Saints' Day (London: Rivingtons, 1875), sermon LXXXVI, "Saint Matthew the Apostle," pp. 435-443; Lectionary Central transcription, "The Good Exchange". Quotation checked against the cited transcription, lines 3-5.
- ↑ Robert Crouse, "The Calling of Saint Matthew," sermon for the Feast of St. Matthew, from The Recollected Pastor and reproduced by permission at Lectionary Central; Lectionary Central, "The Calling of Saint Matthew". Quotation checked against the cited transcription, lines 15-16.