Sundays after Trinity (1928 BCP)

Sundays after Trinity (1928 BCP) are the long series of Sunday propers that follow Trinity Sunday in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. They belong to the Prayer Book's system of collects, epistles, and gospels and carry the Church from the confession of the Holy Trinity toward the Sunday next before Advent. In classical Anglican use, they are not an undefined interval after the great feasts; they are the practical and pastoral part of the Church year, ordering Christian obedience after the doctrinal cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Whitsuntide.

Place in the 1928 Prayer Book

The 1928 BCP begins the sequence with the First Sunday after Trinity. Its collect makes the governing theological point: the life of obedience depends on grace, because fallen human nature cannot please God apart from divine help.

O GOD, the strength of all those who put their trust in thee; Mercifully accept our prayers; and because, through the weakness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is why the Sundays after Trinity are best read as grace-enabled moral formation rather than mere moralism. The collect asks for "the help of thy grace"; the Epistle and Gospel then show what such grace looks like in love, mercy, humility, forgiveness, endurance, and hope.

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the received Prayer Book sequence as a continuation of older Western ordering, with Epistles and Gospels arranged for practical instruction:

The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for the Sundays after Trinity are taken in the order in which they stood in the Sarum Missal. The Epistles are a series of exhortations to the practice of Christian virtues, and form part of that dislocated series of readings taken in order from S. Paul's Epistles which has already been noticed. The Gospels are selected from the parables, miracles, and conversations of our Lord, and in many cases are meant to be illustrative of the teaching of the Epistle.

Percy Dearmer's summary of the Prayer Book's weekly ideal also helps explain why the Sunday proper mattered. Sunday is not detached from the Daily Office, catechesis, or the Holy Communion; it gathers them into the Lord's Day worship of the parish.

Sundays. In addition to the above (Mattins, Litany, Holy Communion--with the special Collect, Epistle and Gospel of the Sunday--Evensong, Catechizing) a Sermon is ordered to be preached on Sunday during the Communion Service by Canon 45.

Scriptural and Pastoral Pattern

The first two Sundays after Trinity establish a strong Johannine emphasis on love. The First Sunday appoints 1 John 4, where the love of God is not sentimental but christological: it is revealed in the sending of the Son and becomes visible in love of the brethren.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

The Second Sunday after Trinity continues that pattern with 1 John 3 and Luke 14. The Epistle warns against a merely verbal love; the Gospel presents Christ's parable of the great supper, where excuses refuse the gracious invitation and the poor, maimed, halt, and blind are brought in.

A CERTAIN man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse.

Later in the season the appointed readings press the communal shape of Christian holiness. The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity joins vocation, humility, patience, charity, and unity:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity repeats the theme of dependent obedience in explicitly pneumatological language. It asks that the Holy Spirit direct and rule the heart, while the Epistle from Ephesians 4 describes the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new.

O GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Numbering and the End of the Season

The number of Sundays after Trinity varies with the date of Easter and the beginning of Advent. The 1928 BCP includes a rubric for years with more or fewer Sundays than the normal set before the final proper.

If in any year there be twenty-six Sundays after Trinity, the service for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany shall be used on the Twenty-fifth Sunday. If there be twenty-seven, the service for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany shall be used on the Twenty-sixth, and the service for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany on the Twenty-fifth. If there be fewer than twenty-five Sundays, the overplus shall be omitted.

The final proper is the Sunday next before Advent, historically associated with the "Stir up" collect. In the local comparative Justus source, this proper appears under "The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity" with a note that the title changed in the 1892 book; in 1928 use it functions as the fixed close of the season. Its collect gathers the whole Trinity sequence into fruitful obedience before the Church turns again to Advent hope.

STIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The accompanying prophetic lesson turns the end of Trinitytide toward the coming righteous King. The moral life prayed through the season is therefore not closed in on itself: it is lived before the Lord who reigns in righteousness and gathers his people.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

Theological Use

The Sundays after Trinity teach a characteristically Prayer Book account of sanctification. The Church first confesses the Holy Trinity, then repeatedly prays for grace, hears apostolic exhortation, and listens to Christ's parables, miracles, and conversations. The result is doctrinally grounded practice: love because God first loved; humility because the vocation is received; forgiveness because God has forgiven in Christ; and good works because the will is stirred and ruled by divine grace.

This pattern also protects the season from two distortions. It is not a bare calendar filler, because the collects, epistles, and gospels have a coherent pastoral shape. It is not a program of self-improvement, because the prayers repeatedly deny spiritual self-sufficiency and ask God to grant, direct, rule, strengthen, and stir up his people.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Trinitytide in the 1928 BCP