Let us pray (in silence) [that we rejoice in the Spirit guiding our lives]
pause
O God,
on this day you taught the hearts of the faithful
by the light of your Holy Spirit,
may we, by the same Spirit, be truly wise
and ever rejoice in your consolation;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
My commentary: on the collect for The Day ofPentecost or below.
Ideas: for the Day of Pentecost service; for a Pentecost Vigil.
The above is my reworking for my Book of Prayers in Common in which I seek to provide a set of collects with history and commentary.
Christians have been praying this collect for at least 13 centuries. While it is part of the formularies of the NZ Anglican Church, and in the official New Zealand Prayer Book, (as far as I can ascertain) it is absent in the 2020 publication that is more fairly called a “draft NZ Prayer Book“. If this becomes the Constitutional Prayer Book, this collect will join the ranks of other well-known, well-loved deleted collects (like the “...hear [the holy scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,…” collect, also inexplicably missing).
The Day of Pentecost ends a season, the Great Season of Easter. Hence this collect is not used during the week following. We left off on Ordinary Week 7 before the start of Lent, so the collect on weekdays, this year, is that for Ordinary Week 8. The Paschal/Easter candle is now given a place of honour by the font and brought to be placed lit by the coffin at funerals.
The traditional ember days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) that follow the Day of Pentecost are a return to the routine practice of fasting forbidden during the Great Fifty Days.
From at least the second century, the Day of Pentecost has been a time to baptise catechumens who were unable to be baptised on Easter Day. These two primary baptismal days, Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost, have expanded to include the feast of the Baptism of Christ, All Saints’ Day (or the Sunday following), and when the bishop is present.
Resources beyond this site:
Textweek
Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary
Resourcing Preaching Down Under
Commentary on the Collect
In the Gregorian Sacramentary (#526), this is the collect for the Day of Pentecost morning Mass at St Peter’s basilica. It is also present in the earlier Liber sacramentorum Gellonensis, one of the many descended from the Gelasian Sacramentary, and so is probably older. It is the collect for the Day of Pentecost in the Sarum rite and through into many to most Anglican revisions as well as into the 1962 Roman Missal. After Vatican II, it was replaced in the Roman Rite, retaining a place for votive Masses of the Holy Spirit.
Deus, qui hodierna die corda fidelium Sancti Spiritus illustratione docuisti:
da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta sapere, et de ejus sember consolatione gaudere.
It is slightly different in the 1962 Roman Missal which drops hodierna die.
Cranmer 1459 has it as:
GOD, whiche as upon this daye haste [hast] taughte the heartes of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the lyght of thy holy spirite; graunte us by the same spirite to have a right judgement in al thinges, and evermore to rejoyce in hys holy coumforte; through the merites of Christ Jesus our saviour; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unitie of the same spirite, one God, worlde without ende.
Cranmer added in all things, evermore, and holy, and used “comfort” rather than “consolation” (presumably to connect with the Holy Spirit as “comforter” John 14:26 KJV and the the previous Sunday collect).
The Day of Pentecost is a feast day that ends a season, the 50 Days of the Great Easter Season. The collect for the weekdays following the Day of Pentecost is not this one but the collect for the Sunday in Ordinary Time that this day replaces, just as the weekday readings are those of that Ordinary Week.
The New Zealand Lectionary used to instruct that the collect for the Day of Pentecost be used during the following week until Saturday (as did USA’s BCP 1928). This completely misunderstands the ecumenical, international liturgical renewal which has returned to the insight that the Day of Pentecost ends the Easter Season – it is the culmination of the Great Fifty Days of the Easter season. The instruction undermines the integrity of this renewal. It is not surprising that other Prayer Books (USA, CofE Common Worship) expressly forbids this practice. As I said, the collect for the week following the Day of Pentecost is, of course, the collect of the Ordinary Sunday proper for the date of Pentecost.
The council of Nicaea was astonished that people were kneeling during this season and forbids kneeling during the fifty days of the Easter Season until Pentecost. The traditional ember days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) that follow this Sunday are a return to the routine practice of fasting forbidden during the Great Fifty Days.
From at least the second century, the Day of Pentecost has been a time to baptise catechumens who were unable to be baptised on Easter Day. These two primary baptismal days, Easter Day and the Day of Pentecost, have expanded to include the feast of the Baptism of Christ, All Saints’ Day (or the Sunday following), and when the bishop is present.
Just as there is an Easter Vigil, the early sacramentaries, and the current Roman Missal, provides for a Pentecost vigil.
The collect teaches that the Spirit’s light is this day kindled in our hearts, praying that this light might illumine the right course of action in our minds and conscience, and then strengthen our wills to follow God’s leading with joy.
The Day of Pentecost is a facet of the great diamond which is the one movement of God’s self-emptying in creating the universe, becoming incarnate, dying, rising, sending the Spirit to draw us into divinity. The separation into differing feasts is due to our human time-and-space constrained limitation – but it should little surprise us that John’s Gospel has a differing chronology to Luke’s stories for Christ’s ascending and gifting of the Spirit.
Trinitarian collects, addressed to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit encapsulate in a central prayer (as does the Great Thanksgiving/eucharistic prayer) this movement from God into God.
NZPB p. 604b:
Almighty God,
you kindled this day the light of your Spirit
in the hearts of your faithful people;
may we by the same Spirit
have a right judgment in all things,
and evermore rejoice in your love and power;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
Common Worship (CofE):
God, who as at this time
taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
grant us by the same Spirit
to have a right judgement in all things
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
BCP (USA):
O God,
who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people
by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:
Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things,
and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
[See also Ireland; South Africa; etc]
In the failed 1998 English Missal translation (collect for a votive mass of the Holy Spirit):
O God,
you have instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit.
Grant that in the same Holy Spirit
we may be truly wise
and ever rejoice in his consolation.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.
2011 ICEL (votive mass of the Holy Spirit):
O God, who have taught the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant that in the same Spirit we may be truly wise
and ever rejoice in his consolation.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
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