Collect for St. Thomas the Apostle (1928 BCP)

Collect for St. Thomas the Apostle (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for Saint Thomas the Apostle on December 21 in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It asks that Thomas's doubtful testing of the resurrection may become, by God's mercy, a stronger confirmation of the Church's faith in Jesus Christ.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY and everliving God, who, for the greater confirmation of the faith, didst suffer thy holy Apostle Thomas to be doubtful in thy Son's resurrection; Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in thy sight may never be reproved. Hear us, O Lord, through the same Jesus Christ, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and for evermore. Amen.

Prayer Book Setting

In the 1928 propers, St. Thomas's Day keeps the inherited Anglican collect but changes the Epistle from Ephesians 2:19-end to Hebrews 10:35 and part of Hebrews 11. That American change makes the feast's doctrinal center especially plain: the prayer asks for undoubting faith, the Epistle defines persevering confidence, and the Gospel shows Thomas brought from refusal to confession.

The 1662 English Prayer Book preserves the older Anglican form of the collect with "more confirmation" where the 1928 American book prints "greater confirmation":

Almighty and everliving God, who for the more confirmation of the faith didst suffer thy holy Apostle Thomas to be doubtful in thy Son's resurrection: Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to believe in thy Son Jesus Christ, that our faith in thy sight may never be reproved.

Evan Daniel summarized the old English Prayer Book setting under the theme "Doubt and Faith," and his outline still fits the 1928 collect:

The Collect was written in 1549, and consists of--1. A commemoration of God's overruling the doubt of Thomas for the more confirmation of the faith.

Clause by Clause

The address, "Almighty and everliving God," places Thomas's story inside God's sovereign and living action. The collect does not praise doubt as a virtue. It says God "didst suffer" Thomas to be doubtful, meaning that even the apostle's painful absence and resistance were overruled for the Church's confirmation in the resurrection.

"For the greater confirmation of the faith" is the key interpretive clause. The Gospel does not end with Thomas's demand for empirical proof, but with his confession and Christ's blessing on later believers. The collect therefore turns a scandal of unbelief into a petition for firmer faith.

Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

"Grant us so perfectly, and without all doubt, to believe" asks for the grace corresponding to the Gospel's blessing: faith that rests in the risen Christ without requiring Thomas's direct sight. The prayer is not anti-evidential; the Gospel itself gives signs. But the desired end of the signs is believing life in Christ.

these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

"That our faith in thy sight may never be reproved" echoes Christ's rebuke and restoration of Thomas. The collect asks that the Church may not need that rebuke, because its faith has already been confirmed by the apostolic witness. The appointed Epistle strengthens the same point with perseverance language:

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.

Thomas, Doubt, and Apostolic Faith

The 1928 appointment of Hebrews 10-11 gives the day a tighter relation between faith and unseen promise than the older Ephesians Epistle. Thomas sees the risen Christ and believes; Hebrews teaches the Church to continue in confidence because faith concerns "things not seen." The collect joins both: God overrules Thomas's doubt for the Church's stronger faith, and the congregation asks not to cast that faith away.

Daniel's pastoral interpretation of Thomas avoids caricature. He describes the apostle not as willfully hardened, but as slow, honest, and attached to Christ:

His scepticism was not owing to any obstinate spirit of unbelief, but to sheer inability to believe the news told him.

Augustine's exposition of John 20 gives the theological center of Thomas's confession. The point is not merely that Thomas handled evidence, but that the visible wounds led him to confess the invisible deity of Christ:

He saw and touched the man, and acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched.

Theological Use

The collect teaches that Christian faith is apostolic, Christological, and ecclesial. It is apostolic because Thomas's encounter belongs to the Church's foundational witness. It is Christological because the prayer's desired faith is faith "in thy Son Jesus Christ," the one Thomas confesses as Lord and God. It is ecclesial because the feast turns Thomas's personal restoration into common prayer for the whole congregation.

The collect is also a useful pastoral prayer for believers troubled by doubt. It does not make doubt the final word, excuse unbelief, or detach faith from evidence. Instead, it asks God to bring the Church through the apostolic witness to a faith that is no longer reproved in Christ's sight. In that sense St. Thomas's Day is not only a commemoration of an apostle; it is a yearly school in receiving the written testimony of the resurrection.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Saint Thomas the Apostle in Anglican Commemoration

External Links

• 1928 Common Prayer, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book
• Church of England, Saint Thomas the Apostle (1662 BCP)
• Evan Daniel, The Prayer-Book: Its History, Language, and Contents
• Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 121