Collect for Transfiguration (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Transfiguration (1928 BCP) is the appointed collect for the Transfiguration of Christ on August 6 in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The prayer joins the Gospel vision of Christ "white and glistering" to the Church's petition for deliverance from worldly disquietude and for final sight of the King in his beauty.

Text of the Collect

O GOD, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistering; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

[1]

The collect begins with revelation before petition. God has shown the Son to "chosen witnesses"; the Church therefore prays not to create its own vision, but to be admitted to the vision already given in Christ. Its phrases are densely scriptural: "raiment white and glistering" comes from the appointed Gospel; the "holy mount" and eyewitness testimony belong to the appointed Epistle; and "the King in his beauty" draws the prayer toward the prophetic promise of beholding the Lord.

Appointed Epistle and Gospel

The Epistle, 2 Peter 1:13-18, reads the Transfiguration as apostolic testimony. Peter's witness is not a private mystical tale but a received proclamation of Christ's "power and coming." The collect's reference to "chosen witnesses" is therefore anchored in the Epistle's account of those who heard the Father's voice on the holy mount.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

[2]

The Gospel, Luke 9:28-36, supplies the collect's imagery and its spiritual movement. Christ prays on the mountain, his countenance is altered, and Moses and Elias speak with him of his "decease" to be accomplished at Jerusalem. The liturgical point is not glory detached from the Passion, but glory revealed on the way to the cross.

And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.

[3]

The Gospel ends not with Peter's wish to remain on the mountain but with the Father's command and Christ alone. The collect's petition to be delivered from worldly disquietude is therefore not escapism; it asks for the stillness in which the Church hears the Son and follows him down from the mount.

While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone.

[4]

The collect's last petition, "behold the King in his beauty," echoes Isaiah's promise. In the Prayer Book setting, this prophetic hope clarifies why the Transfiguration is not only a remembered event but a foretaste of final sight.

Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.

[5]

Prayer Book History

The Transfiguration proper entered the American Prayer Book through the nineteenth-century revision that produced the 1892 Standard Book. E. Clowes Chorley places the feast among the chief liturgical enrichments of that revision.

New Collects, Epistles and Gospels were added for the first Communions at Christmas and Easter Day as in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. One Feast was added to the Calendar: "The Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ," the Collect for which read:

[6]

The 1892 alteration notes also show that the feast was assigned to August 6 and given daily-office lessons. This matters because the 1928 collect stands in a broader Prayer Book placement, not merely as a detached Communion prayer.

In the Calendar this Feast is assigned to the sixth day of August; and the proper lessons for the day are: Morning, Exodus xxxiv., v. 29, 2 Corinthians iii.; Evening, Malachi iv., v. 2, Matthew xvii. to v. 14.

[7]

George Harford and Morley Stevenson's Prayer Book Dictionary records the American insertion of this collect in its discussion of August holy days. Its wording is close to the 1928 form and helps show that the American proper was already recognized by Anglican commentators before the 1928 book.

Transfiguration of Christ (Aug. 6). The Amer. PB inserts a Coll. for this important commemoration, which runs as follows: "O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured in raiment white and glistering: Mercifully grant that we being delivered from the disquietude of this world may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth one God, world without end."

[8]

Anglican Interpretation

John Henry Blunt's annotated Prayer Book gives the wider Western and Eastern history of the feast. His note is useful for the 1928 collect because it explains why the collect can move from the mountain event to the future beholding of glory.

This festival has long been kept in East and West, though not always on this day, in memory of the Transfiguration, and in the Greek Church it is called the Feast of Tabor, while our forefathers called it "The Overforming of our Lord on the Mount Tabor." Pope Calixtus III. issued a bull for its general observance on this day [a.d. 1457].

[9]

Blunt also states the theological reading that the 1928 collect makes into prayer: the Transfiguration is a pledge of Christ's coming glory and of the glorification promised to his members.

The Transfiguration was, however, a type and earnest of our Lord's second coming in glory, and of the future glory of the risen bodies of His members.

[10]

Evan Daniel gives a concise historical summary of the feast's wider observance. The 1928 American collect does not depend on papal authority, but Daniel's note explains why August 6 had become the customary Western date.

Transfiguration. This feast was observed at an early period in the history of the Church, but was not made general till a.d. 1457, when Pope Calixtus III. directed that it should be made of universal obligation, to commemorate the deliverance of Belgrade from the Turks.

[11]

Clause-by-Clause Reading

"O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses" names the Transfiguration as divine disclosure. The witnesses are Peter, John, and James in Luke 9, and Peter's Epistle interprets their witness as testimony to Christ's majesty rather than as "cunningly devised fables."

"Thine only-begotten Son wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistering" keeps the collect close to the appointed Gospel. The wonder is not only brightness but the unveiling of the Son's glory while he speaks of the death he will accomplish at Jerusalem.

"Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world" turns the feast into a petition for inward deliverance. The Church asks to be freed from the agitation that prevents obedient hearing: "This is my beloved Son: hear him."

"May be permitted to behold the King in his beauty" carries the prayer from the mountain vision toward final contemplation. The wording echoes Isaiah 33:17 and belongs naturally with Blunt's interpretation of the Transfiguration as "a type and earnest" of the glory still to be revealed.

"Who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end" ends the collect in explicit Trinitarian worship. The Son revealed on the mount is not a lesser glory beside the Father and the Spirit, but the only-begotten Son who lives and reigns with them eternally.

Use in Worship

In the 1928 BCP, the Transfiguration of Christ is a fixed holy day on August 6, with its own collect, Epistle, and Gospel in "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels." The collect may be used at Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion according to the Prayer Book's calendar and rubrics. Devotionally, it is especially suited to prayer for contemplation, freedom from anxious distraction, and hope in the final vision of Christ's glory.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Collect for Transfiguration; Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, identified here as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, "The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels," The Transfiguration of Christ [August 6], pp. 247-248; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book," propers PDF. Complete collect compared word for word with the Society of Archbishop Justus transcription.
  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 Transfiguration of Christ [August 6], "The Epistle. 2 St. Peter i. 13," p. 248; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book," propers PDF. The transcription punctuation "Christ,." was corrected to Standard Book "Christ,".
  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 Transfiguration of Christ [August 6], "The Gospel. St. Luke ix. 28," pp. 248-249; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book," propers PDF. The transcription "countenance war altered" was corrected to Standard Book "countenance was altered."
  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 Transfiguration of Christ [August 6], "The Gospel. St. Luke ix. 28," p. 249; Society of Archbishop Justus, "The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Standard Book," propers PDF. Quotation checked against the Standard Book PDF, PDF page index 255 / printed p. 249.
  5. ↑ Isaiah 33:17, Authorized Version; Wikisource, "Bible (King James)/Isaiah". This passage supplies the collect's phrase "the King in his beauty"; wording checked against the cited Wikisource transcription.
  6. ↑ E. Clowes Chorley, The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents (New York: Macmillan Company, 1929), chapter VI, "The Prayer Book of 1892"; Project Canterbury, "The New American Prayer Book, by E. Clowes Chorley: Chapter VI". Chorley immediately prints the 1892 form of the collect with "glistening," while the 1928 Standard Book cited above prints "glistering."
  7. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Alterations and Additions Made in the Book of Common Prayer in the Years 1886, 1889 and 1892 (Boston: Printed for the Convention, 1892), item 8; Society of Archbishop Justus, "Alterations and Additions for the 1892 Book of Common Prayer".
  8. ↑ George Harford and Morley Stevenson, eds., The Prayer Book Dictionary (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1912), article "Calendar," p. 106; Internet Archive scan, The Prayer Book Dictionary. Quotation checked against the visible page image; OCR spacing and the abbreviated "Amer. PB" are retained, while obvious line-break spacing is normalized.
  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), calendar note for August 6, p. 160; Internet Archive scan, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer. OCR "Transfiguratiox" corrected to "Transfiguration" from context and page image.
  10. ↑ Church of England; John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, new edition (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), calendar note for August 6, p. 160; Internet Archive scan, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer.
  11. ↑ Evan Daniel, The Prayer-book: Its History, Language, and Contents, 14th ed. (London: Wells Gardner, Darton, & Co., 1894), calendar note for August 6; Internet Archive text, Daniel, The Prayer-book. Capitalization normalized.

External Links

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