Collect for Tuesday in Easter Week (1928 BCP)

Collect for Tuesday in Easter Week (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for Tuesday in Easter Week. It asks Almighty God that those who celebrate the Paschal feast "with reverence" may be found worthy to attain "everlasting joys." In the 1928 order of Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, the prayer is read with St. Paul's synagogue sermon in Acts 13 and St. Luke's account of the risen Christ appearing bodily to the disciples.

Text of the Collect

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with reverence the Paschal feast, may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The 1928 text differs from the older American and English Tuesday in Easter Week collect. The Society of Archbishop Justus comparative page prints the 1789 and 1892 American text in the left column and the 1928 text in the right column. It also notes that the Proposed Book of 1786 did not print separate Monday and Tuesday collects:

In the Proposed (1786) Book, the Collects for Monday & Tuesday of Easter Week are not printed out, but are replaced by the rubric: The same as on Sunday.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, represented by the official Church of England text, preserves the older Easter Day collect for Tuesday in Easter Week:

Almighty God, who through thy only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The 1928 collect is therefore not simply the Easter Day collect under a weekday title. It gives Tuesday its own compact petition: right celebration of the Paschal feast, reverent worship, and final participation in the joys opened by Christ's Resurrection.

Liturgical Setting

Tuesday in Easter Week stands inside the octave-shaped Easter celebration of the 1928 BCP. The Easter Day collect is said daily throughout Easter Week:

This Collect is to be said daily throughout Easter Week.

Morning Prayer marks the wider season with the Easter acclamation from Monday in Easter Week until Ascension Day:

On Monday in Easter Week, and until Ascension Day. - Alleluia. The Lord is risen indeed : O come let us adore him. Alleluia.

The Holy Communion Proper Preface for Easter gives the same paschal doctrine in eucharistic thanksgiving. The feast is reverent because it is not merely seasonal joy; it is thanksgiving for the Paschal Lamb whose death and rising restore everlasting life:

But chiefly are we bound to praise thee for the glorious Resurrection of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord: for he is the very Paschal Lamb, which was offered for us, and hath taken away the sin of the world; who by his death hath destroyed death, and by his rising to life again hath restored to us everlasting life.

That preface explains the collect's words "Paschal feast" and "everlasting joys." The feast is paschal because Christ is the Lamb offered for sin and raised to restore life. Its joy is everlasting because the Resurrection is not only a return from death but the opening of the life of the world to come.

Clause-by-Clause Meaning

"Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God" begins as petition, not presumption. The Church does not claim a natural right to Easter joy; it asks God for what only God can give. The direct address "Almighty God" is fitting for a prayer grounded in resurrection, since the appointed Epistle and Gospel both present the rising of Jesus as God's act.

"That we who celebrate with reverence the Paschal feast" makes worship itself part of the petition. The collect assumes celebration, but asks that the celebration be reverent. In the 1928 Communion office, reverent approach is inseparable from humility, mercy, and union with Christ:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.

"May be found worthy" should be read in that Prayer Book sense. Worthiness is not autonomous merit before God. It is the fitness of repentant, believing, grace-dependent worshippers who come by mercy and are made one with Christ. The Communion prayer after consecration says the same thing with explicit reference to receiving worthily while not weighing human merits:

Humbly beseeching thee, that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.

"To attain to everlasting joys" directs the feast toward its end. Easter joy is not a momentary religious mood. It is the joy of communion with the risen Christ, toward which the Church is preserved by his Body and Blood:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.

The concluding phrase, "through Jesus Christ our Lord," keeps the whole prayer christological. The Church celebrates, asks, is made worthy, and hopes for everlasting joys only through the risen Lord.

Appointed Epistle

The appointed Epistle is Acts 13:26-41. St. Paul addresses "children of the stock of Abraham" and God-fearers, then proclaims that the rulers in Jerusalem fulfilled the prophets by condemning Jesus:

Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.

This lesson gives the collect's reverence a scriptural seriousness. The feast is celebrated before the God who acted through Israel's Scriptures, even through human ignorance and condemnation, to bring his promise to fulfillment.

The heart of the Epistle is resurrection proclamation:

And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.

Paul then interprets the Resurrection as fulfillment of the promise made to the fathers:

And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

The final movement of the Epistle connects resurrection, forgiveness, and justification:

Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Read with this Epistle, the collect's request to "attain to everlasting joys" is evangelical rather than sentimental. The joys are reached through the crucified and risen Christ in whom forgiveness is preached and believers are justified.

Appointed Gospel

The appointed Gospel is St. Luke 24:36-48. It continues the Easter Day story after the Emmaus disciples have returned to Jerusalem. The risen Jesus stands among the disciples and gives them peace:

Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.

The Gospel insists on the bodily reality of the Resurrection. The feast is not reverent because it is vague or inward only, but because the Lord who suffered is truly risen:

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

St. Luke also joins resurrection faith to the interpretation of Scripture:

These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.

The Gospel ends where the Epistle also ends: resurrection witness and forgiveness preached in Christ's name:

Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.

Tuesday in Easter Week therefore teaches the Church to celebrate the Paschal feast as a received apostolic mystery: Christ is bodily risen, Scripture is opened by him, and remission of sins is proclaimed in his name.

Historical and Anglican Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the Prayer Book history behind Easter Week. The older Western rites had daily Easter Week Masses, but the English Prayer Book retained special provision only for Monday and Tuesday while preserving resurrection testimony in the lessons:

The Latin rituals had special Masses for every day in Easter week, but according to Sarum use the first three days were distinguished above the rest as double feasts. In the Prayer Book special provision was made for only two days. The old Collects were discarded, but the Epistles and Gospels were retained, recounting the principal testimonies to the Resurrection.

They also summarize the Easter Week lesson pattern in words that fit Tuesday's Acts and Luke readings. The first lessons point to resurrection joy, while the Gospel sequence continues the story of the day of the Resurrection:

The first Lessons on Monday and Tuesday in Easter week point to the joy of the resurrection: the Song of Moses on the escape of Israel from the death which had overtaken the Egyptians: the Bride, after long waiting, now rejoicing in the Bridegroom's presence: the promise of victory over our spiritual enemy as often as we smite in trusting obedience; and the rising from death of those who by faith touch Him who died, and was buried, and rose again: and the calling from the grave of the great army of the resurrection.

E. J. Rowland gives the wider paschal frame. Easter is not only one feast among others, but the Christian Passover in which Christ's passage from death to life opens the believer's passage to eternal life:

Christ passed over from death to life so that each human soul might pass over from death in sin to eternal life.

Rowland also records the ancient Easter Week association with the newly baptized, a useful historical background for the collect's movement from reverent celebration to everlasting joy:

In early Christian centuries the whole of Easter Week used to be a retreat for the newly-baptized, who attended Mass each day dressed in their white robes.

Katharine S. Oliver's discussion of the 1928 collects is important for source history. She says the American revision added new collects for special days and occasions, and she explicitly notes that some sources were difficult or unknown:

In 1928, our American book, which had been revised after the Revolution, added 20 new Collects for special days and occasions like Monday before and after Easter, for missions, memorial day, Whitsun week, etc.

Oliver continues:

The commission who added these prayers to our calendar asked only "Is it a good prayer? Should it be in our prayer book?" They were not interested in sources. They found prayers in published collections where no sources were given and added them.

This caution is especially useful for Tuesday in Easter Week. The article should not pretend to know more about the collect's source than the evidence permits. What can be said securely is that the 1928 BCP prints a new Tuesday collect in place of the older repeated Easter collect, that the appointed Epistle and Gospel retain the inherited resurrection witness, and that the prayer's theology is governed by Paschal celebration, reverent worship, forgiveness, bodily resurrection, and everlasting life through Christ.

Anglican Theological Use

The collect is useful for teaching Easter as worship ordered toward holiness and final joy. Its few words hold together a complete pattern: God grants, the Church celebrates, reverence governs celebration, grace makes worshippers fit, and the end is everlasting joy through Jesus Christ.

Read with Acts 13, the collect teaches that Easter joy rests on apostolic proclamation: the crucified Jesus is raised by God, seen by witnesses, and preached as the one through whom forgiveness and justification are given. Read with Luke 24, it teaches that the same Jesus is bodily risen and opens the Scriptures. Read in the Communion office, it guards "worthiness" from moral self-confidence: the faithful approach by mercy, are fed by Christ, and are preserved unto everlasting life.

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 Easter Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Monday in Easter Week (1928 BCP)
• Collect for First Sunday after Easter (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels
• Morning Prayer - The 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Holy Communion - The 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Comparative U.S. Prayer Book propers
• Church of England: Tuesday in Easter Week
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• E. J. Rowland, Holy Week and Easter: The Services Explained
• Katharine S. Oliver, Sanctification of Time