Collect for St. Michael and All Angels (1928 BCP)
Collect for St. Michael and All Angels (1928 BCP) is the appointed prayer for Saint Michael and All Angels, kept on September 29 in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. Often called Michaelmas, the feast sets the Church's worship within the Creator's "wonderful order" of angels and men. It does not address the angels in prayer; it asks the everlasting God to use their ministry for the succour and defence of his people through Jesus Christ.
Text of the Collect
O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The collect moves in three deliberate clauses. "O everlasting God" fixes attention on the Creator rather than on a created spiritual power. "Who hast ordained and constituted" confesses providence: the services of angels and human beings are received as God's ordering, not as rival religious jurisdictions. The petition then asks that the angels who serve God in heaven may, by his appointment, succour and defend the Church on earth. Its Christological ending rules out a detached angelology: the Church asks this only through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Appointed Epistle: Christ's Victory
The 1928 book appoints Revelation 12:7-12 as the Epistle. Michael and his angels appear in conflict with the dragon, but the reading itself says that the decisive victory belongs to God and his Christ and is received through the Lamb.
THERE was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
This is why the collect's request for defence cannot mean a talismanic appeal to an independent force. The Epistle names Michael, but it locates salvation, strength, kingdom, and the power of Christ in God. Christian resistance is Lamb-shaped: it is sustained by Christ's blood and public testimony, not by curiosity about angels or fear of evil spirits.
Appointed Gospel: Humility and the Little Ones
The Gospel, Matthew 18:1-10, checks every triumphalist reading of the feast. The disciples ask who is greatest; Christ puts a child before them and makes humility the condition of entering the kingdom.
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
The final verse supplies the Prayer Book's immediate Scriptural connection with angelic ministry. It also directs pastoral attention to those whom a community might overlook.
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Thus the collect's words "succour and defend us" are joined to repentance, humility, and the care of Christ's little ones. They are not a licence to despise the weak while imagining heavenly protection for oneself.
Prayer Book History
The prayer is an inherited western collect, not a modern composition. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere identify Michaelmas as a feast whose collect and Gospel came from the Latin tradition, while the English Prayer Book supplied a new Epistle.
Of the remainder the festivals of S. Bartholomew and Michaelmas are alike in taking Collect and Gospel from the Latin but having a new Epistle.
They print the older Latin form, whose theology is recognizably that of the English collect: God disposes the ministries of angels and human beings in a wonderful order, and earthly life is guarded by those who stand before him in heaven.
Michaelmas. “Deus, qui miro ordine angelorum ministeria hominumque dispensas; concede propitius ut a quibus tibi ministrantibus in coelo semper assistitur, ab his in terra vita nostra muniatur.”
The continuing 1662 English text retains the same basic structure: God's ordering of angels and men, their heavenly service, and their appointed succour on earth. The 1928 American text therefore stands in a long Prayer Book reception while its appointed Revelation reading gives Michaelmas a particularly explicit proclamation of Christ's victory.
Anglican Theological Reading
M. F. Sadler's catechetical exposition of the communion of saints gives a useful Anglican frame for the collect. It relates the angels' ministry to common worship, while expressly rejecting their worship.
They assist us by their ministrations. We join with them in worship and praise.
No; they expressly repudiate it: “See thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant . . . worship God.”
Sadler's two statements articulate the collect's grammar. Angels are fellow-servants who minister by God's command; they are not the addressees of the Church's prayer. The collect accordingly teaches confidence in divine providence and participation in heavenly praise without confusing the creature with the Creator.
An early nineteenth-century Anglican account of the calendar similarly groups Michaelmas and All Saints within the Church's contemplation of the heavenly communion, not private fascination with spiritual beings.
We should ever recollect that we, humblest members of CHRIST'S Church militant here on earth, form part and portion of a great society.
That historical interpretation helps explain why the feast belongs naturally beside the Church's doctrine of the communion of saints. The collect does not promise escape from ordinary discipleship; it asks that the Church, still on earth, may be protected while it joins the angels in the service of God.
Clause-by-Clause Reading
"O everlasting God" begins with God's eternity and sovereignty. The feast is not chiefly a commemoration of angelic power but a confession of the God who creates and commands all powers.
"Who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order" joins heaven and earth without collapsing them. Human service is not angelic service, yet both are ordered toward God. The phrase also prepares for the Epistle: even conflict in heaven does not escape God's rule.
"Mercifully grant" makes the prayer a request for gift, not a claim upon invisible protection. Its mercy is shown in the Gospel's concern for the little ones as well as in the Epistle's proclamation of the Lamb's victory.
"As thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven" establishes the pattern: angels serve God. This is the reason the Church may speak gratefully of their ministry without making them objects of worship.
"So, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth" carefully preserves God's agency. The Church asks the Father to appoint assistance, not the angels to act apart from him. The defence sought is consonant with Revelation 12 and Matthew 18: perseverance in Christ's victory, humility, and care for the vulnerable.
"Through Jesus Christ our Lord" is essential to the prayer's theology. The appointed Epistle says that the accuser is overcome by the blood of the Lamb; the collect asks for help only through that victorious Lord.
Use in Worship
In the 1928 BCP, Saint Michael and All Angels is a fixed holy day on September 29. The collect is appointed with Revelation 12:7-12 and Matthew 18:1-10 in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, and is used at Holy Communion and in the Daily Offices according to the calendar and rubrics.
For devotion, the collect is particularly fitting in prayers for faithful service, protection in temptation, the safeguarding of children and the vulnerable, and a sober sense of the Church's communion with heaven. Its discipline is as important as its consolation: worship belongs to God alone, and all angelic help is received as his merciful appointment through Christ.
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
External Links
- 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
- Society of Archbishop Justus: 1928 BCP propers for St. Michael and All Angels
- Church of England: 1662 propers for Saint Michael and All Angels
- Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
- M. F. Sadler, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction (1872)
- Tracts for the Times, no. 56, "Holy Days Observed in the English Church"
References
- ↑ Collect for St. Michael and All Angels; 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 Michael and All Angels [September 29], section beginning p. 252; 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 official Church of England's 1662 edition. The transcription's
alwaysand the 1928 punctuation have been retained; the 1662 edition'salwayis an edition difference, not an OCR correction. Society of Archbishop Justus, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: Saint Michael and all Angels". Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), "Saint Michael and All Angels". - ↑ Epistle for St. Michael and All Angels, Revelation 12:7-8, 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 Michael and All Angels [September 29]; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: Saint Michael and all Angels".
- ↑ Epistle for St. Michael and All Angels, Revelation 12:11, 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 Michael and All Angels [September 29]; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: Saint Michael and all Angels".
- ↑ Gospel for St. Michael and All Angels, St. Matthew 18:3-4, 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 Michael and All Angels [September 29]; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: Saint Michael and all Angels".
- ↑ Gospel for St. Michael and All Angels, St. Matthew 18:10, 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 Michael and All Angels [September 29]; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: Saint Michael and all Angels".
- ↑ 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), chapter XIII, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," p. 552; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, "A New History of the Book of Common Prayer," chapter XIII.
- ↑ 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), chapter XIII, note 66, p. 552; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, "A New History of the Book of Common Prayer," chapter XIII.
- ↑ M. F. Sadler, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction: Being the Church Catechism Expanded and Explained in Question and Answer, 3rd ed. (London: Bell & Daldy, 1872), section "Communion of Saints," p. 144; Internet Archive, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction. Quotation checked against the scanned-book text; bibliographic title, author, edition, publisher, and date checked in the same source, lines 1-45.
- ↑ M. F. Sadler, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction: Being the Church Catechism Expanded and Explained in Question and Answer, 3rd ed. (London: Bell & Daldy, 1872), section "Communion of Saints," p. 145, citing Revelation 19:10; Internet Archive, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction. Quotation checked against the scanned-book text.
- ↑ Tracts for the Times, no. 56, "Holy Days Observed in the English Church" (London: Rivington, 1834), discussion of St. Michael and All Angels and All Saints; Project Canterbury transcription, "Holy Days Observed in the English Church".