Collect for The Innocents' Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for The Innocents' Day (1928 BCP) is the appointed collect for the feast called The Holy Innocents in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It is prayed on December 28, immediately after the Christmas feasts of St. Stephen and St. John, and turns the memory of Bethlehem's murdered children into a petition for mortified vice, innocent life, and steadfast faith.

Text of the Collect

O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect begins from Psalm 8, but the 1928 Prayer Book appoints the feast inside the Christmas cycle rather than as a detached commemoration of suffering. Its first clause confesses that God can make weakness speak his praise, and its second clause turns the death of the Innocents into a prayer that the Church's life may glorify the same Lord.

Scriptural Shape

The collect's opening phrase comes from Psalm 8, a psalm already used by the New Testament to interpret the humiliation and glory of the incarnate Son:

Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

The appointed Epistle, Revelation 14:1-5, gives the feast its imagery of the Lamb, undefiled witness, and firstfruits. The collect does not call the Church to sentimentality about childhood; it prays for a life made truthful before God.

These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.

The appointed Gospel, Matthew 2:13-18, supplies the historical narrative: Joseph's flight, Herod's violence, and Rachel's lamentation. The collect's "constancy of our faith even unto death" is therefore tied to the Gospel's account of Christ's life being threatened from the beginning.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.

Place After Christmas

Anthony Sparrow's seventeenth-century rationale explains why the Holy Innocents appear directly after Christmas in the Prayer Book calendar. The feast belongs to the mystery of the Nativity because the children of Bethlehem are remembered as witnesses to Christ.

IMmediately after Christmas follow as attendants upon this high Festival S. Stephen. S. John, and Innocents; not because this was the very time of their suffering, but because none are thought fitter attendants on Christs Nativity, than the blessed Martyrs, who have laid down their lives for him, from whose birth they received spiritual life.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere make the same point in a later historical account of the Prayer Book. They identify St. Stephen, St. John, and the Innocents as the first three Christmas attendants, each showing a different form of response to Christ.

After Christmas Day immediately follow the three Holy Days of S. Stephen, S. John, and The Innocents. S. Stephen was the first martyr; S. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved; and the slaughter of the children at Bethlehem was the first result of the Saviour's birth. 'Martyrdom, love, and innocence are first to be magnified, as wherein Christ is most honoured.'

Prayer Book Development

The collect is not simply a retelling of Matthew 2. It also preserves and reshapes older Western collect material. Procter and Frere note that the older Latin collect and the English Prayer Book form before 1661 emphasized confession "not in speaking, but in dying"; the 1661 revision amplified the opening and gave the present collect its Psalm 8 language.

The Collect until 1661 was, 'Almighty God, whose praise this day the young Innocents thy witnesses have confessed and showed forth, not in speaking, but in dying: mortify and kill all vices in us, that in our conversation our life may express thy faith, which with our tongues we do confess: through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Edward Meyrick Goulburn gives a useful clause-by-clause interpretation of the collect's development. He sees continuity with the older petition for mortification, but also a new and more explicit movement from the children's death to the Church's vocation.

The point of the present Collect is that, as the Innocents glorified God by death, so we may glorify Him by the innocency of our lives, to which is very properly added the constancy of our faith.

Goulburn also reads the opening Psalm 8 citation christologically. In that reading, the "babes and sucklings" phrase does not only point to the children who died; it also points to the infant Christ whose threatened life stands behind the whole feast.

Innocents' Day is the octave of Christmas, the third day after the Feast of the Nativity; we have not yet lost sight of the holy Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in the manger of the caravansera at Bethlehem.

Clause-by-Clause Interpretation

The invocation "O Almighty God" is immediately qualified by weakness: God ordains strength from infants. The collect therefore refuses to measure divine glory by visible power. It begins with praise, but the praise is heard through the vulnerable.

"Madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths" is not a claim that Herod's violence was good. It is a confession that God can receive witness even from innocent suffering and can turn the enemy's rage into a testimony to Christ. The Gospel makes clear that Herod intended to destroy the child Jesus; the collect sees the slain children as the first shadow of that conflict.

"Mortify and kill all vices in us" moves the feast from memory to repentance. The prayer asks God to put to death the disorder that belongs to fallen life. Goulburn notices that this petition still calls for human cooperation under grace:

God must work in chief, by granting us "the true circumcision of the Spirit": but none the less must man's will work, with and under God, in the way of self-denial, self-discipline, and self-control.

"By the innocency of our lives" does not mean untested natural harmlessness. It means a grace-formed life in which vice is mortified and guile is removed. The Epistle's "in their mouth was found no guile" and the collect's "innocency" interpret one another.

"Constancy of our faith even unto death" completes the collect's movement. Innocency without constancy would be fragile moralism; constancy without innocency would be mere stubbornness. The collect asks for both, so that the Church may glorify God's holy Name in life, suffering, and death.

Use in Worship

In the 1928 BCP, The Holy Innocents is appointed for December 28, with its own collect, Epistle, and Gospel. The feast follows Christmas Day, St. Stephen's Day, and St. John the Evangelist's Day, so that the Church's Christmas worship passes quickly from the manger to martyrdom, beloved witness, and innocent suffering. In Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion, the collect teaches the congregation to pray the Nativity as a call to repentance and steadfast discipleship.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• Society of Archbishop Justus: The Innocents' Day propers
• Procter and Frere: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels
• Anthony Sparrow: Rationale on Advent and Christmas
• Edward Meyrick Goulburn: The Collects of the Book of Common Prayer