Collect for Third Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)

Collect for Third Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for the Third Sunday after Easter. It prays that those brought into Christ's religion may be turned from error into truth, and that their conduct may match their profession while they live as "strangers and pilgrims" in the world.

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion, that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The collect is a prayer for visible Christian conversion. It begins with God, who gives "the light of thy truth" to those in error, and it asks that those admitted into Christ's fellowship may both refuse what contradicts their profession and pursue what agrees with it. The logic is not merely moral improvement. The way of righteousness is entered by divine illumination, and the Christian life is then ordered by a public profession that must be embodied.

The 1928 wording is worth noticing. The American book asks that "all those" admitted into Christ's religion may "avoid" contrary things. Older English-family texts often read "all them" and "forsake." The 1928 form keeps the inherited structure while giving the petition a plain American cadence: error is met by truth, fellowship is matched by profession, and profession is tested by the shape of life.

Liturgical Setting

The Third Sunday after Easter stands in the Easter-to-Ascension sequence. It follows the Good Shepherd Sunday and precedes the Sundays that move toward Christ's going to the Father and the coming Comforter. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere summarize this whole Eastertide pattern:

The joyful commemoration of our Saviour's resurrection, and the promise of the Comforter, are the principal subjects of the Gospels from Easter to Ascension Day; while the Epistles exhort to the practice of those duties which are answerable to the Christian profession.

That sentence names the setting precisely. The Gospel for this Sunday is Christ's "little while" discourse, in which sorrow is turned into joy because he goes to the Father and will be seen again. The Epistle, meanwhile, tells baptized Christians how to live in the meantime: as pilgrims, free servants of God, honorable among the Gentiles, and obedient for the Lord's sake.

Clause-by-Clause Meaning

"Almighty God" addresses the Father as the one whose power reaches the mind and the will. The collect does not treat error as a merely intellectual mistake or conduct as a merely social problem. Both must be corrected by God.

"Who showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth" asks the Church to remember that return begins with illumination. The first grace is not self-discovery but God's disclosure of truth.

"To the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness" gives the purpose of that light. Truth is not shown for curiosity alone; it restores the wanderer to a way. The collect's image is therefore both doctrinal and moral: the truth of God leads into a righteous path.

"Grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion" places the petition inside the Church's visible fellowship. "Admitted" naturally recalls baptismal incorporation and catechetical profession, but the prayer applies to the whole worshipping congregation as those who bear Christ's name publicly.

"That they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession" asks for a negative discipline. Christian identity must reject whatever contradicts it, especially those desires and habits that make the Church's confession unbelievable in public life.

"And follow all such things as are agreeable to the same" gives the positive discipline. The collect does not stop at avoidance. It asks for a life coherent with the Christian profession: good works, ordered liberty, brotherly love, fear of God, and honor rightly given.

Appointed Epistle

The appointed Epistle is 1 Peter 2:11-17. It begins by naming the Church's earthly condition:

DEARLY beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

This is the collect's petition in apostolic form. The faithful have been admitted into Christ's fellowship, but they are still "strangers and pilgrims." The things contrary to their profession are not harmless private preferences; they "war against the soul." The things agreeable to their profession are public good works that may lead even hostile observers to glorify God.

The Epistle continues by applying Christian profession to civil conduct and liberty:

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

Here "profession" becomes concrete. The Christian is free, but freedom may not become "a cloke of maliciousness." The collect therefore guards Anglican moral theology from two distortions: profession without conduct, and liberty without service. To follow what agrees with Christ's religion is to live as God's servant in the ordinary structures of public life.

Appointed Gospel

The appointed Gospel is John 16:16-22. It opens with the disciples' confusion before Christ's departure:

JESUS said to his disciples, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father?

The Gospel gives the collect its Eastertide depth. Error is not only moral wandering; it can also be bewilderment before Christ's hiddenness. The disciples cannot yet understand the pattern of absence and return. The Church therefore prays for the light of truth while hearing a Gospel in which Christ himself interprets the little while of sorrow.

Christ then promises that the disciples' grief will be changed, not wasted:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

Read beside the collect, this promise keeps the prayer from becoming anxious moralism. The Christian profession is lived in a world where the Church may be misunderstood, tempted, and sorrowful. Yet Christ's resurrection joy gives the light in which the Church can return to righteousness, endure the world's hostility, and continue in good works.

Historical and Anglican Interpretation

The 1662 English Prayer Book appoints the same Sunday, collect, Epistle, and Gospel. Its collect is close to the 1928 text but uses "be in error," "all them," and "forsake":

Almighty God, who shewest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This continuity matters. The 1928 collect is not a new devotional composition; it is an American form of an inherited Anglican collect. The older wording also helps clarify "profession": the prayer assumes that Christian faith is publicly confessed and that the life of the baptized must not contradict that confession.

Procter and Frere identify the source of the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays after Easter as the older Latin service tradition, in contrast with the first two Eastertide Sunday collects that came from 1549. Their note gives the Latin ancestor for this collect:

Third. 'Deus qui errantibus, ut in viam possint redire justitiae, veritatis tuae lumen ostendis: da cunctis, qui christiana professione censentur, et illa respuere quae huic inimica sint nomini, et ea quae sunt apta sectari.'

The Latin source shows how closely the English collect follows the older shape. The prayer turns on four ideas that survive in 1928: God's light of truth, return to the way of righteousness, Christian profession, and rejection of what is hostile to that name. The 1928 collect therefore stands in continuity with Western liturgical prayer while fitting the Anglican Eastertide pattern of profession, conduct, sorrow, and joy.

Anglican Theological Use

For catechesis, the collect teaches that Christian identity is received before it is performed. The faithful are "admitted into the fellowship of Christ's Religion"; they do not invent that fellowship for themselves. But admission brings responsibility: what contradicts the profession must be avoided, and what agrees with it must be followed.

For preaching, the Epistle gives the main practical line. The Church's public life matters. Honest conduct among unbelievers, disciplined liberty, submission for the Lord's sake, and love of the brotherhood all belong to Eastertide holiness.

For devotion, the Gospel gives consolation. The Christian life between Easter and Ascension is not triumph without tears. Christ names sorrow honestly, yet promises a joy that cannot be taken away. The collect may therefore be prayed as a request for truthful conversion, coherent conduct, and steadfast hope until the risen Lord is seen fully.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Eastertide in the 1928 BCP
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Second Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Fourth Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)

External Links

• EpiscopalNet: 3rd Sunday after Easter Prayers (1928 BCP)
• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer Standard Book PDF
• The Third Sunday after Easter - The Church of England
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, Internet Archive text