Almighty and everliving God,
we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple,
so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
(BCP 239)
Historical introduction
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s translation of this Collect from the Gregorian sacramentary is:
Almighty and everlasting God,
we humbly beseech thy Majesty,
that as thy only begotten Son was this day presented in the Temple in the substance of our flesh;
so grant that we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean minds; by Jesus Christ our Lord.[1]
Marion Hatchett notes that Cranmer modified the original Latin from what could have been translated as “thy only begotten Son was on this day presented in the Temple with the substance of our flesh” to “in the substance of our flesh.” Cranmer also revised the transition from the Petition to the Pleading from “through Jesus Christ our Lord” to “by Jesus Christ our Lord.”[2] In 1662, the Preamble was changed from “Almighty and everlasting God” to “Almighty and everliving God” and the Pleading was expanded to “by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”[3] The revisers for our 1979 BCP, seeking to minimize confusion from metaphysical terminology, changed “we humbly beseech thy Majesty” to “we humbly pray that” and omitted the phrase “in the substance of our flesh.” The reduction of the metaphysical content was, according to Hatchett, to ensure that the emphasis of the Collect was on the presentation of Jesus in the Temple (the second half of Luke 2:22) rather than the medieval focus on the purification of Mary (the first half of Luke 2:22),[4] that continues in the Roman Catholic tradition.
The Preamble
The Preamble, “Almighty and everliving God,” invites us to consider how what we are asking for in the Petition is a mighty act of God and is an activity that we connect to God’s eternal life that God shares with us.
The Acknowledgement
The Acknowledgement, “as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple,” refers to Luke 2:22-40. The Epistle reading for this feast day, Hebrews 2:14-18, makes the connection that our 1979 version of the Collect no longer makes: our salvation is through the solidarity of the Son with us when he took on all that it means to be human. Through baptism, we die with Christ and are raised with Christ (Romans 6:3-7). Through our solidarity with Christ and his solidarity with us, we share in his fulfillment of the law (Romans 8:3-4), which began with his circumcision (the feast of The Holy Name of our Lord), continues with his presentation in the Temple, and culminates in his life lived according to God’s will, all within the context of first-century Judaism.
As the lives of the baptized are united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, so too the Acknowledgment provides the foundation for the Petition, “we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Even though Jesus was a baby when he was presented at the Temple, his resurrection and ascension are the sign that his whole life was an expression of a pure and clean heart that was pleasing to the Father (see Acts 2:25-28).
To be presented to God the Father with pure and clean hearts is an allusion to Psalm 24:3-4 and Matthew 5:8. The work of the Holy Spirit is to “lead us into all truth,” enable us to grow in the likeness of Christ, and bring us “into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation” (“The Holy Spirit,” Catechism, BCP 852), so that we are able to work out our salvation, trusting that our Triune God begins, enables, and completes this work (Philippians 2:12-13).
According to Hatchett, with Cranmer’s change from “through” to “by” (and a punctuation change in 1662 that Hatchett does not fully describe), the Petition is “not offered through the mediation of Christ” but that “we may be presented to God by Christ, a teaching set forth in the Scriptures (Ephesians 5:25-27; Colossians 1:21-23; Jude 24-25).”[5] That is, while Jesus prays for us as our high priest (Romans 8:34), the changing of the preposition in the Petition focuses our attention on Jesus claiming us as his own. As we hear in Hebrews 2:11-13, by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf, we are sanctified (made holy) and he is not ashamed to call us his children and his brothers and sisters. Through our mutual solidarity—our abiding in him and his abiding in us (John 17:20-24)—his taking on all that it means to be human and we dying with him and rising in him to new life in our baptism—we are made like him. Part of being like Jesus is to share in his pure and clean heart. In this Petition we are asking that when Jesus presents us to the Father, our hearts have been conformed to his own—hearts centered on loving God and neighbor rightly and actively working for God’s kingdom to come on earth (Revelation 19:5-9).
The Pleading
The Pleading: “by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen,” calls our attention to the work of the Holy Trinity on our behalf. This work is accomplished by our everliving God, so we have no need to worry that making our hearts pure and clean is beyond God’s power or that God will run out of time to move us all to this wonderful state of existence.
For your consideration:
What does the image of Jesus presenting us, the church throughout the world, to God the Father, with pure and clean hearts stir up in you? How might praying this prayer not only on this day, but throughout the year, affect how we think about ourselves as parishioners, as a parish, as a denomination, and as the church throughout the world?
Almighty and everliving God,
we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple,
so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
© 2021 and 2023 Donna Hawk-Reinhard, edited by Kate McCormick
Want to know more about the Collect format or the underlying spiritual formation goal of this series of meditations? You can find that information here.
[1] Marion J. Hatchett, Commentary on the American Prayer Book, (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 199.
[2] Hatchett, 199.
[3] Hatchett, 199.
[4] Hatchett, 199.
[5] Hatchett, 199.