This week's collect for extra-ordinary time

In doing my daily office this week, this week the extra Ordinary Time — due to the extra-long season after Trinity — busted the two websites I use to show me the collect and lessons for Morning and Evening Prayer. So had to look up what the actual rules are for this occasion. (I would have realized that on Sunday, but I went to three different 3-year lectionary churches and used CradleOfPrayer for daily office).

This year Easter was April 1, 10 days after the earliest possible date. We also Advent 1 on December 2 — a week after Thanksgiving and one day before the latest possible date (Dec 3 as we had last year). So there are a total of 26 Sundays after Trinity in 2018, and there theoretically could be 27.

If you look at the 1928 Book of Common Prayer:

• The Sunday lessons (and collect for the week) in the Trinity season go from 1-24, and then there is “The Sunday next before Advent"
• The daily lectionary goes from 1-24, and then it lists the 3rd, 2nd and 1st Sunday before Advent. So this week — the week of the 2nd Sunday before Advent — the morning OT lesson is reading through Lamentations. Next week, we get to do Joel — a favorite because it’s short but punchy, and that (outside the Daily Office) we only hear on Ash Wednesday (“rend your heart and not your garments”). There is no chance of running out of lessons.

So the problem is scheduling one or two Sundays (depending on whether there are 26 or 27 Sunday after Trinity), plus reusing that collect the rest of the week for Daily Office. For the latter, we need a Collect for the 25th Sunday after Trinity (and possibly the 26th Sunday after Trinity).

During MP at the college chapel, I couldn’t figure this out on my iPad, with the websites and a PDF of the BCP; this is one day I needed the paper BCP. So when I got back, I flipped through the book and found the relevant rubric, just before the Collect for Sunday next before Advent, on page 224:

¶ 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 logic of this is that in a year with an early Easter, you didn’t have as many Sundays after Epiphany. This year we had three Sundays, followed by Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, so weeks 4,5,6 did not get used. With clericalism, we just let the clergy worry about this, but anyone doing the Daily Office needs either to know the rule or at least where to look. If I ever teach the Daily Office, it’s a point I’ll be sure to make.

Meanwhile, I'll make myself a note so I have it next time:

Collect for the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of eternal life; Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

Collect for the Twenty-six Sunday after Trinity

O LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they who do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by thy mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.