"Defend us": on our need of the Second and Third Collects at Mattins and Evensong
O LORD, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power - from the Third Collect, for Grace, at Mattins.
... that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness - from the Second Collect at Evening Prayer.
... and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night - from the Third Collect, for Aid against all Perils, at Evensong.
"The Collects are not an ancient feature of the Hour Services." So said Procter and Frere in a statement which later Anglican liturgists would exploit. Cranmer's addition of the fixed Second and Third Collects at Mattins and Evensong is a development disapproved of in late 20th century Anglican revisions of the daily office. And so the Second and Third Collects are routinely optional - or absent - from such revisions. In TEC's BCP 1979, they are optional amidst seven collects. In Common Worship Daily Prayer, only one collect is said at the offices, either the collect of the day or an alternative assigned to each day of the week. In these latter, Cranmer's Second and Third Collects can be found, meaning that if they are prayed it is not daily but weekly, and only then in 'ordinary time' and if the collect of the day is not prayed. In the CofI BCP 2004 they are again optional, alongside alternatives.
The CofI alternatives are interesting insofar as they indicate why liturgical revision has been uneasy with Cranmer's Second and Third Collects. The alternatives are noble. Indeed, they are mostly contemporary versions of collects from elsewhere in the Prayer Book tradition. Missing from these alternatives, however, are any petitions for deliverance from our enemies - petitions Cranmer ensured that we offered daily, morning and evening. As if to illustrate this further, the contemporary version of the Third Collect, for Grace, at Morning Prayer omits the petition "Defend us".
It is as if liturgical revisers were embarrassed by this antiquated insistence that we need God's peace, grace, and aid amidst the assaults of foes and dangers. It is yet another expression of liturgy shaped by 'The End of History', by the assumption that safe, peaceful late 20th century Western liberal societies are the norm. That assumption, of course, overlooked very many experiences in those societies which were anything but safe or peaceful: poverty, racial injustice, violent crime, AIDS. The delusion should have been more fully exposed by the events of the past two decades - 9/11 and its consequences, the Great Crash of 2008, climate change. And now Covid-19.
Yesterday evening, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom addressed the nation:
The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades – and this country is not alone.
All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this invisible killer ...
But at present there are just no easy options. The way ahead is hard, and it is still true that many lives will sadly be lost.
It is a time when we need Cranmer's wisdom: those daily petitions, morning and evening, for deliverance from enemies. Liturgy embarrassed by or queasy about praying daily for such deliverance is rather irrelevant in the midst of a world in which dangers, perils and - yes - enemies are real, bringing fear, undermining our common life, threatening death. Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great Church, London, wrote in an article in last weekend's The Sunday Telegraph:
This is an inhuman disease. Not only is it killing hundred of human beings every day, but the way it strikes - and the people it strikes - targets the essence of what it means to be a human being ... The people we care for most, we must care for by not seeing, not touching, not speaking to directly; even if this means we shall never touch them again in this life. This is an inhuman disease.
It is a time when liturgies shaped by comfortable delusions about peace and prosperity are found wanting. It is a time when see our need of a liturgy, a daily office, which prays for deliverance from foes, which - morning and evening - petitions God to defend and deliver us.
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