The Collect of Purity

3/3/2019

Today we look at the Collect for Purity in the Anglican Standard Text of the 2019 BCP. This prayer has deep meaning for me and my family. We pray this prayer together every night before we begin our family worship.

The Collect for Purity
The Celebrant prays (and the People may be invited to join)
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thomas Cranmer, the author of the original English Prayer Book, translated the Collect of Purity from an 11th century prayer written in Latin. It is thought that this prayer was originally based on Psalm 51. The Collect of Purity has made it into almost every Anglican Prayer Book in the world. Needless to say, it has become a distinctive of Anglican Liturgy.

The 2019 Book of Common Prayer restores the Collect of Purity to its proper place by making it a requirement in the Liturgy. In Rite II of the 1979 BCP the Collect for Purity was an optional. The 2019 BCP also allows for the Priest to invite the congregation to pray the collect in unison.

What is a Collect?
A collect is a prayer that is intended to collect or sum up the prayers of the community. They can be seasonal or for other special intentions. Collects typically follow a four fold pattern. This pattern is true of the Collect of Purity.

Invocation: God is addressed
Meditation: Some attribute or activity of God is described
Petition: Grace or blessing is asked for
Doxology: A sentence of praise to The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit

The Collect for Purity is a powerful way to start worship. It reminds us when we come before God we are laid bare. God sees and knows all that we are and all that we bring to him. He knows our intentions in coming to worship. He knows if our heart is in the words that we speak to Him or if our minds have wandered.

The prayer asks God to use his supreme insight and the power of the Holy Spirit to filter our thoughts so that we can worship properly. It is a recognition that we cannot really worship God in the way that he deserves and requires without His merciful help.

It also reminds us what kind of worship God desires. A perfect love. A love that is whole. A love that includes our heart, mind and soul. It is also a worship that magnifies the Name of the Lord. It is a worship that makes God’s character known throughout the world. We ask God help us to be worthy of this task. Worthy of bearing the name of God and sharing that name through our praise of Him. Our worship is such that God’s fame and greatness is planted in those who we interact with.

As you come to worship this Sunday I challenge you to pray this collect to yourself. May those words guide and inform what you do unto the Lord.

God’s peace,

Fr. Paul

6 Comments

Jerome Eggers

3/8/2019 06:05:28 pm

Appreciated definition/explanation of Collect.

Sue Bentley

3/9/2019 08:13:51 pm

Thank YOU! The older children in our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd ponder on the Collect of Purity to prepare themselves for a period of listening to God in Prayer. We will share this with them on Sunday!!

John Joseph Jenkins Jr

4/12/2019 07:16:01 pm

Another home run Father. Thanks again for a definitive and meaningful explanation

J. Hattick

12/21/2021 12:49:55 pm

I am curious if you know why the collect was for the people to read in older editions Like the US 1789 and the English 1662, but was reserved for the priest in later editions?

pastor thieringo aguigo

3/21/2022 06:38:58 pm

PRAYER REQUEST :
For the pastor Thieringo : 2022 and after :
Have best jobs with best wages incomes, best hours in Swiss country.
Protection prosperity wisdom chance success miracles,divine breakthroughs, financial breakthroughs, must be in pastor Thieringo's life in Jesus name.
When I(pastor Thieringo) cry, answer me, God of my justice! When I am in distress, save me! Have pity on me, listen to my prayer!
Sons of men, how long will my glory be outraged? How long will you love vanity, will you seek lies?
Know that Jehovah has chosen a godly man; The Lord hears when I cry to him.
Tremble, and sin not; Speak in your hearts on your bed, then shut up.
Offer sacrifices of righteousness, and trust in the LORD.
Many say, Who will make us see happiness? Bring on us the light of your face, O LORD!
You put in my heart more joy than they have when their wheat and their must abound.
I go to bed and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD! you give me security in my home.

Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angel of the Lord chase them.Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the Lord persecute them.For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall. And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord: it shall rejoice in his salvation.All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him? False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother. But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear me, and ceased not: With hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions. I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people. Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land. Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. This thou hast seen, O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, be not far from me. Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord. Judge me, O Lord my God, according to thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up. Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion together that rejoice at mine hurt: let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me.Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long.

May all the evils spirits directed against me, coming against me acting against me: be bound, go away and come no more against me. May satan be bound when it comes against me, when it acts against me, when it comes against me, when it acts against me, when it acts in my life: let it be bound go and don't come against me in the name of Jesus. May the Eternal God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit Spirit reprove him drive him away in the name of Jesus.May the Lord God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit Spirit, Creatures Celestials of the Lord, Spirits of the Lord, who are in the service of the Eternal God, the Angels and Archangels of God, the fire of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ destroy the destroyer so that he may stop destroying me, so that he do not destroy me any more, stop those who persecute me to continue to persecute me, in the name of Jesus.May all things is in my life that does not come from God come out and don't come back, may the plans of God, the destiny of God for my life be fulfilled in the name o

Pastor Thieringo Aguigo

6/19/2022 05:04:06 am

PRAYER REQUEST
Protection prosperity miracles wisdom freedom, bigs gains, winner's life of bigs gains, favor of God, blessings, chance success healthy healing for pastor Thieringo in Jésus name

The Collect of Purity

Leave a Reply.

2019 BCP
Anglican Standard Text

The Collect of Purity

Leave a Reply.

2019 BCPAnglican Standard Text

2019 BCP
Anglican Standard Text