Collect for Sunday after Ascension Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for Sunday after Ascension Day (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for the Sunday after Ascension Day. It prays from the Church's position between Christ's exaltation and Whitsunday: the ascended King of glory has gone before, and the congregation asks not to be left comfortless but to receive the Holy Ghost and be exalted with Christ.

Text of the Collect

O GOD, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The collect has three movements. First, it addresses God as "the King of glory," language that recalls Psalm 24 and identifies Ascensiontide as the triumph of the Lord who enters the heavenly gates. Second, it names the saving event: the Father has exalted his only Son Jesus Christ "with great triumph" into the kingdom in heaven. Third, it turns that doctrine into prayer for the Church: do not leave us comfortless; send the Holy Ghost; exalt us to the place where Christ has gone before.

"Leave us not comfortless" gives the collect its pastoral center. The prayer does not imagine the Ascension as Christ's absence in the sense of abandonment. It confesses Christ's heavenly reign and asks for the promised Comforter by whom the ascended Lord continues to be present with his people. "Exalt us unto the same place" then joins comfort to final hope: the Spirit comforts the Church on earth while directing it toward union with Christ in heaven.

Appointed Epistle

The 1928 Epistle is 1 Peter 4:7-11. Its opening words make the Sunday after Ascension Day a time of sobriety, prayer, charity, hospitality, and faithful stewardship.

THE end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.

The Epistle supplies the moral shape of Ascensiontide expectation. The Church waits for the Comforter not by speculation or passivity, but by watchful prayer and concrete charity. The collect's request for the Holy Ghost is therefore not a vague desire for inward consolation. It is prayer for the divine comfort that sustains disciplined, charitable, and hospitable life under the reign of the ascended Christ.

The Epistle also gives the congregation a doctrine of gifts:

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

This explains why the collect asks for the Holy Ghost "to comfort us." In the Prayer Book setting, comfort is not mere private reassurance. The Spirit strengthens the Church to minister, speak, serve, and glorify God through Jesus Christ.

Appointed Gospel

The 1928 Gospel is John 15:26-16:4. The first sentence answers the collect almost word for word: the Comforter comes from the Father, is sent by the Son, and testifies of Christ.

WHEN the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

The collect's "send to us thine Holy Ghost" is thus grounded in Christ's own promise. The Spirit is not an independent religious influence but "the Spirit of truth" proceeding from the Father and sent by the Son. The prayer therefore has a trinitarian structure: the Church addresses the Father, confesses the exalted Son, and asks for the Holy Ghost.

The Gospel then prepares the Church for witness under pressure:

These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

This is why the collect asks not to be left comfortless. The promised Comforter is given to a witnessing Church that may be misunderstood, excluded, or persecuted. The Ascension does not remove the Church from trial; it places the Church's courage under the reign of Christ and the ministry of the Spirit.

Ascensiontide Setting

The 1928 Morning Prayer invitatory keeps the week between Ascension Day and Whitsunday under the sign of Christ's heavenly reign:

On Ascension Day and until Whitsunday. - Alleluia. Christ the Lord ascended into heaven : O come, let us adore him. Alleluia.

The Sunday after Ascension Day belongs within this same liturgical interval. Its collect does not leave Ascension behind and does not yet celebrate Pentecost as accomplished. It prays between the two: Christ has ascended; the Church asks for the Comforter.

The Proper Preface for Ascension, appointed upon Ascension Day and seven days after, gives the same eucharistic horizon:

THROUGH thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who, after his most glorious Resurrection, manifestly appeared to all his Apostles, and in their sight ascended up into heaven, to prepare a place for us; that where he is, thither we might also ascend, and reign with him in glory.

This preface illuminates the collect's final petition. The prayer asks to be exalted where Christ has gone before because the Eucharistic thanksgiving already confesses that Christ ascended "to prepare a place for us." The collect is therefore eschatological as well as pneumatological: the Spirit comforts the Church on the way to the place prepared by the ascended Lord.

Historical and Theological Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the ten days after Ascension as a period of expectation:

The ten days after the Ascension are sometimes called Expectation Tide: they commemorate that anxious period during which the Apostles tarried at Jerusalem, in earnest expectation of the promised gift of the Comforter.

That sentence is an exact description of the collect's spiritual posture. It is an "Expectation Tide" prayer: Christ is exalted, the Church waits, and the request is for the promised Comforter.

Procter and Frere also identify the history of the Sunday collect:

A new Collect was composed in 1549 for the Sunday after Ascension Day, taken from an Anthem which had been sung at Evensong on Ascension Day; but the old Epistle and Gospel were kept.

The 1928 American collect therefore preserves a Reformation Prayer Book composition rather than a generic modern summary. It gathers Ascension triumph, Johannine promise, and Pentecostal expectation into one public prayer.

M. F. Sadler's catechetical treatment of the Holy Ghost explains the Gospel logic behind the collect's petition:

It is He through Whom Christ is present in the Church; as we learn from Christ's words, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you" (John xiv. 18): but He came by and in the Spirit.

Sadler helps guard the collect from a false contrast between Christ's Ascension and Christ's presence. The ascended Christ is present to the Church by the Holy Ghost. To pray "leave us not comfortless" is to pray for the promised mode of Christ's continued presence.

Sadler also connects the coming of the Spirit to Christ's departure:

He tells us that it was that the Comforter, i.e., the Holy Ghost, might come (John xvi. 7).

That is the theological hinge of this Sunday. The collect asks for the Comforter precisely because the ascended Lord promised to send him. Ascensiontide is therefore not a pause in salvation history but the Church's prayerful reception of Christ's promise.

Anglican Theological Use

For catechesis, the collect teaches the relation of Ascension and Pentecost. Christ's exaltation and the gift of the Spirit are not separate devotional themes. The Son goes before; the Spirit comforts and strengthens; the Father is glorified through Jesus Christ.

For preaching, the appointed Epistle and Gospel hold together expectation and vocation. The Church watches unto prayer, serves with the gifts God gives, bears witness to Christ, and endures hostility without being left comfortless.

For devotion, the collect is a compact Ascensiontide prayer. It gives the believer words for the interval between Christ's triumph and the visible fullness of his kingdom: adore the ascended Lord, ask for the Comforter, and hope to be exalted where the Saviour has gone before.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Ascension Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Whitsunday (1928 BCP)
• Ascensiontide in the 1928 BCP
• Whitsuntide in the 1928 BCP

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Sunday after Ascension Day - The Church of England
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, Internet Archive
• M. F. Sadler, The Church Teacher's Manual of Christian Instruction, Internet Archive