Collect for Third Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Third Sunday in Lent (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for "The Third Sunday in Lent." It asks Almighty God to look upon the sincere desires of his humble servants and to stretch forth the right hand of his Majesty for defence against every enemy. In the 1928 propers it is joined to Ephesians 5:1-14 and St. Luke 11:14-28, so the day gathers prayer, baptismal holiness, separation from darkness, and Christ's victory over evil.

Text of the Collect

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]

The collect begins with supplication: "We beseech thee." It does not describe Lenten obedience as self-generated moral power, but as prayer before Almighty God. The phrase "hearty desires" means more than passing religious interest. It asks God to regard desires rooted in the heart, and it immediately qualifies those desires as belonging to "humble servants." The collect therefore joins inward longing to obedient humility.

The petition then moves from God's regard to God's action. The "right hand of thy Majesty" is a biblical image of sovereign saving power, and here it is requested as "our defence against all our enemies." In the appointed Epistle those enemies include works of darkness, corrupt speech, covetousness, and impurity; in the appointed Gospel they include the spiritual power that Christ overcomes.

Historical Source

New Every Morning's source catalogue identifies this collect as one of the older Lenten prayers received from Sarum:

The forty-day fast is opened by Cranmer's great Ash Wednesday Collect - one of the most penetrating of the 1549 prayers - followed by Cranmer's Lent I and four Sarum collects.

[2]

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the inherited Lenten sequence after the First Sunday in Lent as a continuation from older offices:

The remainder together with the Epistles and Gospels, read during this season, are continued from the old offices. They set before us the duty of self-denial, and teach us to withstand temptation by recounting Christ's victories over Satan.

[3]

The English Prayer Book received this collect in 1549. Its older spelling shows the same essential prayer:

WE beseche thee, almighty God, looke upon the hartye desires of thy humble servauntes, and stretche foorth the right hande of thy majestie, to bee oure defence against all oure enemies; through Jesus Christe oure Lorde.

[4]

The official Church of England text of the 1662 Prayer Book also prints the collect in substantially the same form:

We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[5]

The 1928 American collect is therefore a received Western and Anglican text, not a new twentieth-century composition. It stands in the Lenten series as a prayer that inherited English forms placed beside readings about holiness and spiritual conflict.

Clause-by-Clause Reading

"We beseech thee, Almighty God" names the posture and the addressee. The Church pleads, but it pleads to the Almighty. The collect is direct because Lent requires actual help, not vague aspiration.

"Look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants" asks God to regard the inner movement of penitence and obedience. The servants are humble because their desires need God's gracious attention before they can become steadfast action. L. R. Tarsitano connects this phrase with the baptismal and catechetical setting of Lent:

Those "hearty desires," meaning "desires of the heart," were simply called "vows" in the original Latin of this prayer.

[6]

The phrase "stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty" asks for God's royal power to act. The image is not merely defensive in a passive sense. In the Gospel, Christ confronts and conquers the strong man; in the Epistle, the baptized are commanded to walk as children of light. Divine defence makes active obedience possible.

Melville Scott summarizes the collect's two lessons about prayer:

It must be the expression of hearty desire and the utterance of humble obedience. We must long to receive our petitions and yet be content with the answer given.

[7]

The closing words, "against all our enemies," are interpreted by the appointed readings. They include personal sin, worldly darkness, spiritual opposition, and empty outward reform that leaves the soul unfilled by Christ.

Appointed Epistle

The Epistle appointed for the Third Sunday in Lent is Ephesians 5:1-14. It begins by rooting holiness in Christ's sacrificial love:

BE ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.

[8]

The collect's "hearty desires" are therefore not detached from the Christian life. The Epistle turns desire into imitation: the faithful are beloved children who walk in the love of Christ's self-offering.

The same Epistle then names the contrast between darkness and light:

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

[9]

Scott reads this passage as a baptismal separation from the world and a positive vocation to visible holiness:

So the Christian is not only in the light, but the light is in him: he is "light in the Lord," as having received the light of truth, peace, love, holiness, and hope.

[10]

The collect asks for God's defence because the Epistle does not imagine holiness as harmless sentiment. The baptized must reject sins of flesh, tongue, and covetousness, and must have "no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness." The right hand of God's Majesty is invoked for this concrete Lenten obedience.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel appointed for the day is St. Luke 11:14-28. It opens with Christ casting out a demon and answering the accusation that his work is demonic:

JESUS was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered. But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.

[11]

Christ then declares the decisive sign of the kingdom:

But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.

[12]

Blunt reads this Gospel as a statement of Christ's own personal power over evil:

He is the Stronger than the strong Who drives evil from our nature, by purifying that nature in His own holy and immaculate Person; from each individual by the work of the same Person through the grace given in sacraments.

[13]

The Gospel also warns that emptiness after outward reform is dangerous:

And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

[14]

Scott gives the theological point sharply:

Even to cast out evil is not enough: it must be displaced by good. Neglect of full deliverance invites greater bondage.

[15]

The Gospel concludes by defining blessedness as obedient hearing:

But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

[16]

This ending draws the collect, Epistle, and Gospel together. The "hearty desires" God is asked to look upon are not merely emotional; they become hearing and keeping the word of God, walking as children of light, and relying on Christ the stronger one for defence.

Anglican Use

For worship and catechesis, the collect teaches Lent as humble desire strengthened by divine defence. The congregation asks God to look on the heart, but the appointed Epistle requires the body, tongue, possessions, and public walk to be brought into holiness. The Gospel explains why such prayer must be Christ-centred: the enemies of the soul cannot be overcome by vacancy, respectability, or neutrality. They are overcome by the stronger Lord whose kingdom has come.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Collect for Third Sunday in Lent, in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Lenten Season, "The Third Sunday in Lent," PDF p. 21; Society of Archbishop Justus PDF: 1928 Standard Book PDF. The complete collect was compared word for word with the local source file sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1531-1538, and checked against local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1282-1287; OCR spacing artifacts in the PDF extraction were ignored.
  2. ↑ New Every Morning Anglican Fellowship, "Sources of the Seasonal Collects," section IV, "Lent"; Sources of the Seasonal Collects. The card for "The Third Sunday in Lent" identifies the source as "Sarum" and gives the incipit "We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants"; quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/sources-seasonal-collects.html, lines 523-550.
  3. ↑ Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, revised edition (London: Macmillan, 1902), chapter 13, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels; and the Lessons," section on Lent; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription: A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter 13. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/procter-frere-ch13.html, lines 424-430.
  4. ↑ Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1549), "The iii. Sonday [in Lent]," "The Collect"; Society of Archbishop Justus transcription: Collects, Epistles, and Gospels from the 1549, 1552 and 1559 Books of Common Prayer: Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/justus-1549-lent.html, lines 309-336.
  5. ↑ Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), Cambridge University Press 2006 edition, "The Third Sunday in Lent"; The Third Sunday in Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/coe-1662-lent3.html, lines 8698-8704.
  6. ↑ L. R. Tarsitano, "A Perpetual Catechism," sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent at Saint Andrew's Church, Savannah, March 26, 2000, Lectionary Central transcription: A Perpetual Catechism. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/tarsitano.html, lines 94-99.
  7. ↑ Melville Scott, The Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels: A Devotional Exposition of the Continuous Teaching of the Church Throughout the Year (London: S.P.C.K., 1902), "The Third Sunday in Lent," Collect section; Lectionary Central transcription: Melville Scott, The Third Sunday in Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/melville-scott.html, lines 166-184.
  8. ↑ Ephesians 5:1-2, appointed as the Epistle for the Third Sunday in Lent in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Lenten Season, "The Third Sunday in Lent"; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1540-1544, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1288-1292, correcting PDF spacing artifacts.
  9. ↑ Ephesians 5:8-10, appointed Epistle for the Third Sunday in Lent in the 1928 BCP; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1551-1555, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1301-1305; the local HTML artifact "dark-ness" was normalized to "darkness" against the PDF extraction.
  10. ↑ Melville Scott, The Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, "The Third Sunday in Lent," Epistle section; Melville Scott, The Third Sunday in Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/melville-scott.html, lines 93-104.
  11. ↑ St. Luke 11:14-15, appointed as the Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," Lenten Season, "The Third Sunday in Lent"; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1562-1567, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1313-1318, correcting PDF spacing artifacts.
  12. ↑ St. Luke 11:20-22, appointed Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent in the 1928 BCP; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1573-1577, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1327-1332.
  13. ↑ John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer (London: Rivingtons, 1884), commentary on "Third Sunday in Lent"; Lectionary Central transcription: J. H. Blunt, Third Sunday in Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/blunt.html, lines 69-77.
  14. ↑ St. Luke 11:25-26, appointed Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent in the 1928 BCP; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1581-1584, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1337-1340; the PDF extraction's broken word spacing was normalized.
  15. ↑ Melville Scott, The Harmony of the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, "The Third Sunday in Lent," Gospel section; Melville Scott, The Third Sunday in Lent. Quotation checked against local research copy tmp/revision-research/collect-for-third-sunday-in-lent/melville-scott.html, lines 154-164.
  16. ↑ St. Luke 11:28, appointed Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent in the 1928 BCP; 1928 Standard Book PDF. Quotation checked against sources/justuspropers/ReadingsA.htm, lines 1584-1587, and local PDF extraction tmp/revision-research/lent-in-the-1928-bcp/1928-propers-pypdf.txt, lines 1341-1345.

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