Collect for Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer under the heading "The First Sunday after Christmas Day." It repeats the Christmas Day collect and places it beside Galatians iv and St. Matthew i, so that the Church prays the Incarnation as the ground of regeneration, adoption, and daily renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

[1]

The address, "Almighty God," makes the collect a prayer of divine initiative. The Father has "given us" the Son, and the Son has not merely appeared beside human nature but has taken "our nature upon him." The phrase "as at this time" marks the continuing Christmas octave, while "born of a pure virgin" connects the prayer with the creedal confession that the incarnate Lord is conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary.

The petition turns the doctrine of the Nativity into the life of the baptized. Because the Son has taken human nature, the Church asks that those who are "regenerate" and made God's children "by adoption and grace" may be renewed "daily" by the Holy Spirit. The collect therefore does not stop at remembrance of Bethlehem. It asks that the gift of the Incarnation become sanctifying renewal in the faithful.

Appointed Epistle and Gospel

The appointed Epistle is Galatians iv. 1-7. It supplies the collect's language of sonship, adoption, and the sending of the Spirit:

NOW I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

[2]

Galatians explains why the collect joins Christmas to adoption. The Son is "made of a woman" and "made under the law" in order to redeem those under the law. The collect's "made thy children by adoption and grace" is therefore not a generic phrase for moral improvement: it is Paul's doctrine of redeemed sonship prayed by the congregation. Its request for daily renewal is also Pauline, because the Epistle says that God has sent "the Spirit of his Son" into the hearts of those who are sons.

The Gospel, St. Matthew i. 18-25, gives the collect its narrative and creedal setting. The Virgin Birth is not an ornament to the collect, but part of its claim that the Son truly takes human nature:

THE birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

[3]

The Gospel then names both the saving purpose and the Emmanuel promise:

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

[4]

This Gospel shows why the collect's clauses belong together. The Son takes our nature by the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; his name is Jesus because he saves from sin; and he is Emmanuel, "God with us." The collect answers that Gospel by asking that the saved and adopted people of God may be renewed by the Holy Spirit.

Christmas Octave and Eucharistic Setting

In the 1928 book, the Sunday after Christmas stands within the Christmas octave. The Holy Communion office gives Christmas and the following seven days a Proper Preface that restates the same theology in eucharistic form:

Upon Christmas Day, and seven days after. BECAUSE thou didst give Jesus Christ, thine only Son, to be born as at this time for us; who, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, was made very man, of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that without spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin. Therefore with Angels, etc.

[5]

The Preface confirms the collect's doctrinal logic. Christ is "born as at this time for us"; he is "made very man" of the Virgin's substance; and his sinless humanity is ordered "to make us clean from all sin." The collect asks for the same grace as daily renewal. The Nativity is therefore confessed in the eucharistic thanksgiving and prayed as sanctification.

The Daily Office also carries Christmas language through this period. Morning Prayer appoints the Christmas invitatory sentence until the Epiphany:

On Christmas Day and until the Epiphany. - Alleluia. Unto us a child is born : O come, let us adore him.

[6]

This Office sentence helps explain why the same Christmas collect can serve the Sunday after Christmas. The Prayer Book treats the days from Christmas to Epiphany as a continuing adoration of the Child who is born for us, not as a detached sequence of unrelated themes.

Historical and Liturgical Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the Prayer Book's older Christmas Communion pattern and the origin of the principal Christmas collect:

For Christmas the old Roman Books contained three Masses besides the Mass of the Vigil, and at each of them the prophetical lesson was retained side by side with the Epistle and Gospel. This arrangement was at first local and due to the fact that there were three Stational Masses said at Rome on Christmas Day, but afterwards it became general elsewhere. In 1549 the service of the Vigil was dropped out and provision was made for only two Communions on this day: in 1552 the provision for the first Communion was omitted, and thus only the Epistle and Gospel of the High Mass, with a newly composed Collect, which were used at the second or principal Communion, are retained in the present service.

[7]

They also state why no different collect is required for this Sunday in the inherited Prayer Book scheme:

The Rubric directs the Collect of the Nativity to be said on all these days and until New Year's Eve: consequently. no special Collect is required for the Sunday after Christmas Day. The Epistle is the old Epistle for that day, but in place of the old Gospel is appointed the passage which in the old scheme was assigned to the Mass of Christmas Eve.

[8]

John Henry Blunt gives the theological interpretation most directly fitted to the appointed Epistle and Gospel. He reads the Sunday after Christmas as the continuation of Christmas with a new emphasis on human adoption:

The Lord's Day within the Octave of Christmas carries on, of necessity, the idea of the preceding festival, forming a kind of "Low Sunday" to Christmas Day itself. There is no change of Collect, but the Epistle and Gospel strike a new chord in the harmony of the Eucharistic Scriptures. On Christmas Day they memorialized the condescension of the Word of God in becoming Son of Man: on this day they set forth the exaltation of human Nature by that condescension.

[9]

Blunt's next sentence makes the Galatians connection explicit:

On the one day, the Son of God is shewn to us becoming the Son of Man: on the other, the sons of men are shewn to us becoming the sons of God, through the Adoption won for them by the Holy Child Jesus. We are "heirs of God through Christ," because of the fulfilment of the promise conveyed by His Name, "He shall save His people from their sins."

[10]

Lancelot Andrewes, preaching on the same Galatians text, supplies a Caroline Anglican theological reading of the Epistle's sequence:

And so have we here now in one both twain His natures. "God sent His Son" - there His divine; "made of a woman," - here His human nature. That, from the bosom of His Father before all worlds; this, from the womb of His mother in the world.

[11]

Andrewes then links the Son's assumption of human nature to redeemed adoption:

For all evil is in being "under the Law" from whence we are redeemed, and all good in being invested in the heavenly inheritance whereunto we are adopted.

[12]

E. Clowes Chorley places the American 1928 book in continuity with nineteenth-century American liturgical enrichment. His account of the 1892 book is relevant because several items then debated or adopted formed the path toward the 1928 Standard Book:

The first long step toward enrichment of the Liturgy which culminated in the Book of 1928, was taken in 1892.

[13]

For this collect, the historical point is restrained. The Sunday after Christmas does not receive a different collect in the 1928 book; it receives the Nativity collect again, with Galatians iv and Matthew i showing how the Incarnation gives rise to adoption and renewal. The 1928 heading "The First Sunday after Christmas Day" also prepares the way for the next article in the sequence, Collect for Second Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP), whose collect is a distinct 1928 Christmastide addition.

Use in Worship and Catechesis

In worship, this collect is said at the Communion proper for the First Sunday after Christmas Day and may also be used devotionally through the Christmas season. It is especially suited to catechesis because each clause can be taught from the appointed readings. "Thy only-begotten Son" and "take our nature" are explained by Matthew's account of the Virgin Birth and Emmanuel. "Regenerate" and "adoption and grace" are explained by Galatians iv. "Daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit" follows the Epistle's promise that God sends the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his children.

Read in the order of the 1928 propers, the collect keeps Christmas from becoming sentiment. The Child is the eternal Son given by the Father; his birth is "for us"; his people are saved from their sins; and those who receive adoption must continually receive renewal from the Holy Spirit.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles and Gospels," Christmastide, exact collect "Collect for Sunday after Christmas Day" under the printed heading "The First Sunday after Christmas Day," p. 96 / PDF image page index 8, Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation compared word for word with local source sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 505-514, and checked against the rendered PDF image tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/pdf-pages/page-index-8.png; the local HTML OCR artifact "grace. may" was corrected to the PDF wording "grace, may."
  2. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles and Gospels," "The First Sunday after Christmas Day," Epistle, Galatians iv. 1, p. 96 / PDF image page index 8, Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 515-528, and the rendered PDF image tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/pdf-pages/page-index-8.png; local HTML OCR artifacts "time adoption" and "an. heir" were corrected against the PDF.
  3. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles and Gospels," "The First Sunday after Christmas Day," Gospel, St. Matthew i. 18, p. 96 / PDF image page index 8, Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 530-540, and the rendered PDF image tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/pdf-pages/page-index-8.png; punctuation normalized from the local OCR.
  4. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles and Gospels," "The First Sunday after Christmas Day," Gospel, St. Matthew i. 21-23, p. 96 / PDF image page index 8, Society of Archbishop Justus PDF, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 540-550, and the rendered PDF image tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/pdf-pages/page-index-8.png; the local HTML OCR artifact "lie shall save" was corrected to "he shall save."
  5. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion," Christmas Proper Preface, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, The Order for Holy Communion. Quotation checked against sources/justus1928/HC.htm, lines 462-473.
  6. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Order for Daily Morning Prayer," seasonal invitatory sentence "On Christmas Day and until the Epiphany," Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, The Order for Daily Morning Prayer. Quotation checked against sources/justus1928/MP.htm, lines 315-319.
  7. ↑ 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), pp. 526-527, chapter XIII, "Collects, Epistles, and Gospels"; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer: Chapter XIII. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/procter-frere-ch13.html, lines 209-219, and against Internet Archive OCR tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/procter-frere-1907-djvu.txt, lines 17033-17040.
  8. ↑ 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), p. 528, chapter XIII, "Collects, Epistles, and Gospels"; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer: Chapter XIII. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/procter-frere-ch13.html, lines 259-263. The period after "consequently" is reproduced from the transcription.
  9. ↑ Church of England; John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer: Being an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England, new edition (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), p. 256, note on "The Sunday after Christmas"; Internet Archive scan/OCR, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/blunt-1895-djvu.txt, lines 56366-56383; OCR spacing normalized.
  10. ↑ Church of England; John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer: Being an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England, new edition (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), p. 256, note on "The Sunday after Christmas"; Internet Archive scan/OCR, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/blunt-1895-djvu.txt, lines 56383-56393; OCR spacing normalized.
  11. ↑ Lancelot Andrewes, "Sermons of the Nativity. Preached Upon Christmas-Day, 1609," sermon IV on Galatians iv. 4-5, in Lancelot Andrewes Works, Sermons, Volume One, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology; Project Canterbury transcription by Dr Marianne Dorman (2001), Lancelot Andrewes Works, Sermons, Volume One: Sermon IV. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/andrewes-sermon4.html, lines 371-380, and against the web-indexed Project Canterbury snippet; broken HTML quote glyphs were normalized to plain quotation marks.
  12. ↑ Lancelot Andrewes, "Sermons of the Nativity. Preached Upon Christmas-Day, 1609," sermon IV on Galatians iv. 4-5, in Lancelot Andrewes Works, Sermons, Volume One, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology; Project Canterbury transcription by Dr Marianne Dorman (2001), Lancelot Andrewes Works, Sermons, Volume One: Sermon IV. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/andrewes-sermon4.html, lines 493-500; broken HTML quote glyphs were normalized to plain quotation marks.
  13. ↑ E. Clowes Chorley, The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents (New York: Macmillan, 1929), chapter VI, "The Prayer Book of 1892"; Project Canterbury transcription, The New American Prayer Book, by E. Clowes Chorley: Chapter VI. Quotation checked against tmp/revision-research/collect-for-sunday-after-christmas-day/chorley1929-06.html, lines 331-337.

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