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.

Year-end hymn specials

Today is ”stir up Sunday” or Christ the King Sunday, depending on your lectionary. Either way it’s the last Sunday before Advent, and thus the last day of the liturgical year as well as the last day of the long season after (depending on your prayer book) Trinity or Pentecost. It is also the end of “ordinary time” (which for some includes only these Sundays and for others also includes the time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday).

In the US, it’s also the Sunday before Thanksgiving — and thus at my church this morning the hymn choices reflected that secular reality. (But that’s another season and another story).

Traditional Prayer Bookes: “Stir Up” Sunday

In the 1928 BCP, the appointed collect for the last Sunday before Advent gives this date the nickname “Stir Up” Sunday:

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.

This was derived from the same collect written for the 25th Sunday after Trinity In 1549 (and the 1662) BCP:

STIERE up we beseche thee, O Lord, the wylles of thy faythfull people, that they, plenteously bringing furth the fruite of good workes; may of thee, be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christe our Lorde.

The collect was abandoned in the 1979 prayer book, but in the ACNA trial use liturgy, a heavily modified version is scheduled for the penultimate Sunday of ordinary time (i.e. a week ago):

Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they may plenteously bring forth the fruit of good works, as they await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to restore all things to their original perfection; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen

Whenever it is scheduled, there is an obvious hymn to go with it: “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” (H40: 562; H82: 561); in fact, this is the recessional hymn recommended by H40 for this Sunday with the “Stir up” colleect. The tune is by George Webb, combined with a text by George Duffield Jr. This is the last remaining text in common use by the 19th century U.S. Presbyterian pastor and abolitionist.

Of the original text, H40 keeps verses 1,3,4 and 6. H82 keeps the same verses, but (as expected) censors the M-word (“men”).

Contemporary Lectionaries: Christ the King Sunday

This weekend I saw questions on a church music group from a Catholic organist about an appropriate hymn for today, which is Christ the King Sunday. As the Episcopal Dictionary of the Church on the ECUSA website helpfully explains:

Christ the King Sunday

Feast celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church on the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It celebrates Christ's messianic kingship and sovereign rule over all creation. The feast is unofficially celebrated in some Episcopal parishes, but it is not mentioned in the Episcopal calendar of the church year. Marion Hatchett notes that the Prayer Book collect for Proper 29, the last Sunday of the church year, is a "somewhat free" translation of the collect of the Feast of Christ the King in the Roman Missal. This collect prays that God, "whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords," will "Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule" (BCP, p. 236). The feast was originally instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and celebrated on the last Sunday in Oct. It has been observed on the last Sunday before Advent since 1970.

However, today many Episcopalian (and formerly Episcopalian) parishes are using the Revised Common Lectionary, and the Vanderbilt site lists this Sunday as the “Reign of Christ”. This seems to be the term used by progressive mainline Protestants, although some use both terms.

For Christ the King Sunday, there are several obvious hymn choices, including

• Alleluia Sing to Jesus (H40: 347.2; H82: 460)
• At the Name of Jesus (H40: 356; H82: 435)
• Crown Him with Many Crowns (H40: 352; H82: 494)
• Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (H40: 545; H82: 616)
• Praise my Soul the King of Heaven (H40: 282; H82: 410)

While all touch on the CTK theme, I think the support (and thus congregational reinforcement) of this theme is greatest for 347 (“Alleluia Sing to Jesus”), 352 (“Crown Him with Many Crowns”) and 545 (“Hail to the Lord’s Anointed”). In fact, it’s impossible to beat #352, which makes the point in every verse in this hybrid of 19th century Catholic and Anglican hymnwriters:

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,
And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above,
Crown Him the King to Whom is given the wondrous name of Love.
Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;
Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

For the CoE, The English Hymnal (#381) uses different verses and a different tune, while the New English Hymnal (#352) keeps the same 1906 choice of text but adopts the stirring tune of the American hymnals, Diademata by Sir George Job Elvey (1816-1893).

I am hard-pressed to think of a more majestic recessional for any portion of ordinary time. The descant (in H82) and the retard on the final verse really drive home the reality of His kingship and our obedience and worship of our heavenly King.