Christ in us
Let us pray (in silence) [that God accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine]
pause
Almighty God,
your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ
ever lives to make intercession for us;
have pity on our weakness,
and in your mercy give us those good things
which we are not worthy to ask,
except through his merits,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.
Amen
NZPB p. 600b
Alternative collect provided for this Sunday by BCP(USA), Common Worship, and the Roman Missal
Christian prayer is Christ in us praying the Holy Spirit to the Source of the Godhead.
Romans 8: "14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”
16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
Christian prayer is being attentive to the persons of the Trinity within us praising. Perichoresis - that wonderful Greek word related to choreography - is the dance of the Trinity. Prayer is allowing that dance within us, attending to it, living it.
A sense of unworthiness and of awe needs to lead us not away from God and prayer - but towards God and prayer.
This collect originates in the Leonine sacramentary (#917) for autumn ember days:
O God of the heavenly powers, who gives more than we desier or deserve; grant, we pray you, that by your mercy, that which we have not the confidence in our merits to ask, may be given us.
Revised for the Gallican Missale Francorum and the Gelasian sacramentary (#1201) it was placed in the Gregorian sacramentary (#1162) in its position as the collect for the twelfth Sunday after the octave of Pentecost. It remained in this position for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity through the Sarum missal to the 1928 Prayer Book.
1549: ALMIGHTIE and everlastyng God, which art alwayes more ready to heare then we to praye, and art wont to geve more than eyther we desyre or deserve; Powre downe upon us the aboundance of thy mercy; forgeving us those thynges wherof our conscience is afrayde, and gevyng unto us that that our prayer dare not presume to aske, through Jesus Christe our Lorde.
1662 altered the ending to: ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire, or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.