Let us pray (in silence) [that our hope in God may influence us daily]
Pause
Keep the household of your church, O God, [or Keep the whānau of…]
safe in your tender compassion,
so that we who entrust ourselves totally to your heavenly grace
may always be defended by your protection;
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
This is part of my reworking collects, in my Book of Prayers in Common, with history and commentary.
This prayer is sourced in the Hadrianum (sacramentary given by Hadrian I to Charlemagne in 785-786) where it is a prayer over the people at the end of the Eucharist on Saturday in the second week of Lent. It is in the Gelasian sacramentary (collect for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany), in Benedict of Aniane’s supplement to the Hadrianum (810-815 – where it is also the collect for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany). Alcuin placed it there also. Both traditions were preserved through the Sarum rite and Missale Romanum 1962. It is now shared by Roman Catholics, Anglicans/Episcopalians, and others.
Here is my commentary for this collect for Ordinary 5.
For those who count backwards from Lent, this Sunday is “Sexagesima”.
In the NZ Lectionary booklet, (and in NZPB2020 page 627) this is the “5th Sunday in Ordinary Time”; last Sunday was the “4th Sunday of the Epiphany”, the change in counting is presented without any explanation. If this is the “5th Sunday in Ordinary Time”, there is, furthermore, no explanation what happened to the previous four Sundays in Ordinary Time. In the Notes on the Calendar – Te Maramataka, and Precedence in Liturgical Observance, “Ordinary time is the period after the Feast of the Presentation of Christ until Shrove Tuesday”. This means that, actually, in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (the Anglican Church of Or), this coming Sunday is the FIRST Sunday in Ordinary Time!
Resources beyond this site
Textweek
Preaching Resources Down Under
Girardian Reflection on the Lectionary
