Collect for Tenth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Tenth Sunday after Trinity (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It asks not only that God hear the Church's prayers, but that he govern the Church's asking, so that desire itself may be conformed to what pleases God.

Text of the Collect

LET thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]

The collect opens with "merciful ears," a biblical and liturgical way of speaking about God's readiness to hear. The worshippers are "humble servants": they do not come as possessors of a claim, but as those whose confidence rests on mercy.

The second half gives the prayer its distinctive force. "That they may obtain their petitions" is joined to "make them to ask such things as shall please thee." The collect therefore does not imagine prayer as the religious strengthening of every natural wish. It asks God to purify the act of asking itself, so that the Church's petitions may be shaped by divine pleasure and not merely by urgent appetite.

Historical Source

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere print the Latin original among the collect sources for the Trinity season:

Tenth. Pateant aures misericordiae tuae, Domine, precibus supplicantium; et ut petentibus desiderata, concedas, fac eos quae tibi placita sunt postulare.

[2]

The modern 1928 Common Prayer source index identifies the collect as part of the Sarum inheritance received into the Anglican Prayer Book tradition:

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Sarum

"Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants..."

[3]

This history matters because the collect is not a modern devotional paraphrase. It is an inherited Western collect, carried through the English Prayer Book tradition and retained in the American 1928 BCP. Its brevity is part of its theological discipline: it gathers mercy, humility, petition, and sanctified desire into one public prayer.

Prayer and Sanctified Desire

The Common Prayer commentary on the Prayer Book lectionary reads the collect as a lesson in what Christian prayer is for:

In the Collect today we learn about prayer. We ask God, first that he may hear our prayers, and secondly, that we may ask for such things as shall please him.

[4]

The same commentary connects this discipline of asking to trust in God's merciful wisdom:

Today's Collect teaches us that true prayer stems from a trust and a faith in God's mercy and love.

[5]

The collect is therefore pastoral as well as doctrinal. It gives words for unanswered prayer without collapsing into fatalism. If God is merciful, then the worshipper may ask boldly. If God is wiser than the worshipper, then the worshipper may also ask to be taught what to ask.

The commentary states the final petition in terms of spiritual discernment:

Finally, when we ask that God may make us to ask such things as shall please him, we are asking for spiritual sight and discernment to understand truly what is best for our souls and bodies.

[6]

Read clause by clause, the collect teaches a movement from mercy to humility, from humility to petition, and from petition to the conversion of desire. The Church prays to be heard; then it prays to be made fit to ask.

Appointed Epistle

The appointed Epistle is 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. In the 1928 BCP it begins by locating the confession of Jesus' lordship in the work of the Holy Ghost:

CONCERNING spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

[7]

The Epistle explains why the collect's petition must be more than moral self-control. True confession and true asking depend on the Spirit. Prayer is not merely human speech aimed upward; it is the Church's speech formed by God.

The Epistle then turns from unity of confession to diversity of gifts:

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

[8]

Charles Kingsley, preaching on this Epistle for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, interprets these differences as gifts that are useful because they are governed by one Spirit:

There are diversities of gifts. Differences in talents, in powers, in character, in kinds of virtue and piety; so that you shall find no two good men, no two useful men, like each other. But there is the same Spirit.

[9]

The collect's request, "make them to ask such things as shall please thee," is thus illuminated by the Epistle. The Spirit who enables the confession "Jesus is the Lord" also orders the Church's varied gifts toward common profit. The prayer asks that petitions, like gifts, be directed by God rather than by rivalry, presumption, or private will.

Appointed Gospel

The appointed Gospel is Luke 19:41-47. The 1928 BCP joins the collect to Christ's tears over Jerusalem and his cleansing of the temple:

AND when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

[10]

The Gospel gives a searching edge to the collect. Jerusalem does not know "the things which belong unto thy peace." The collect prays for the opposite condition: that God would make his servants ask for what pleases him, and therefore for what truly belongs to peace.

The Gospel then identifies the temple by its proper vocation:

And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves. And he taught daily in the temple.

[11]

Here the collect's doctrine of prayer becomes ecclesial. The temple is to be "the house of prayer"; the Church must therefore ask not only for things, but for the purification of asking. Christ's judgment on corrupted worship stands beside the collect's plea for humble, God-pleasing petitions.

Liturgical and Theological Use

In the 1928 BCP, the collect belongs to the Communion propers for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity and may shape the offices and devotional prayer of the week according to the Prayer Book's ordinary use of the collect of the day. Its theology is especially suited to Trinitytide, when the Church repeatedly prays for grace to live out the faith confessed in the great feasts from Advent through Trinity Sunday.

The collect is also a concise Anglican school of prayer. It teaches that mercy is the ground of prayer, humility is the posture of prayer, the Spirit is the hidden agent of faithful prayer, and Christ's own zeal for the house of prayer judges every corruption of worship. To pray this collect is to ask that God hear the Church and reform the Church's asking at the same time.

See Also

External Links

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "Collect for Tenth Sunday after Trinity," in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 203, under "The Tenth Sunday after Trinity"; verified against the 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page labels Sec2:ccix-Sec2:ccx, and compared word for word with the Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
  2. ↑ Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, with a Rationale of Its Offices, revised and rewritten edition (London: Macmillan and Co., 1907), Additional Note to chapter XIII, p. 553, "The following are the originals of the Collects for the Sundays after Trinity"; Project Canterbury transcription by Charles Wohlers.
  3. ↑ New Every Morning Anglican Fellowship, "Sources of the Seasonal Collects," section VIII, Trinitytide, "The Tenth Sunday after Trinity"; Sources of the Seasonal Collects.
  4. ↑ Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 146-147, excerpt for "The Tenth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  5. ↑ Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 146-147, excerpt for "The Tenth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  6. ↑ Prayer Book Society of Canada, Common Prayer: A Commentary on the Prayer Book Lectionary, vol. 4, Trinity Sunday to the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity (Charlottetown, PEI: St. Peter Publications, n.d.), pp. 146-147, excerpt for "The Tenth Sunday after Trinity"; Lectionary Central transcription, reprinted with permission of the publisher.
  7. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Epistle. 1 Corinthians xii. 1." for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed pp. 203-204; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page labels Sec2:ccix-Sec2:ccx.
  8. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Epistle. 1 Corinthians xii. 1." for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 204; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccx.
  9. ↑ Charles Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons (London: Macmillan and Co., 1861), Sermon XV, "Antipathies," for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, on 1 Corinthians xii. 3-6; Project Gutenberg eBook #11536, released March 10, 2004.
  10. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Gospel. St. Luke xix. 41." for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 204; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccx.
  11. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, Standard Book accepted in 1928), "The Gospel. St. Luke xix. 41." for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," printed p. 204; 1928 Common Prayer Standard Book PDF, page label Sec2:ccx.
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