Faith prayed by collect. . .

If you have read this blog before, you probably already know that I consider the art of the collect or prayer of the day to be both lofty and practical.  Some of the most profound prayers we pray are the collects appointed for the particular Sunday or day of the Church Year or among the many collects that form a prayer book for Christians.  Some of the great prayers of the day have survived through time to be prayed anew by this age and generation.  Some have not.  We have surely enjoyed the great benefit of people who were careful to preserve this heritage and pass it on -- even while rendering its petitions from one language (Latin) to another (vernacular).  

Thomas Cranmer's Prayer Book of 1549 is not simply a foundational document of the Anglican Church for Anglican worship but a priceless gift to all of English-speaking Christianity.  I am ever grateful for his good stewardship of these treasures and for the way they have been preserved among us every Sunday morning.  Yet there are collects I do miss that have not been included in the lectionary of Lutheran Service Book and, sadly, some of them have not been improved by those who sought to do so.  One that I have missed is this little gem -- a prayer prayed only by Rome, it would seem.  But it is a keeper:

O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray,
so that they may return to the right path,
give all who, for the faith they profess, are accounted Christians,
the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ
and to strive after all that does it honor.  Amen

Instead, we pray a wonderful collect, certainly appropriate to the day (Proper 10A),

Blessed Lord, since You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning,
grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them
that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

I am not suggesting that our current prayer be omitted but I wish we had a place for the older collect.  It is certainly ancient but what commends it most to my ear is the way it not only confronts us with what God has done but directs us in what we are to do.  We not only strive after all that honors Christ and befits the light of His truth; we are also to reject what is contrary to the name of Christ.  It is that part that is most urgently needed in our age of diluted Christianity poured half strength or less into the hearts and minds of God's people by those who presume to be guided by something higher than God's Word and Spirit.  It is the time of times in which we are called not only to affirm what is good and right and true and beautiful but to reject what is not -- to call it out for what it is as an affront to the cross and to formally reject it.  The Church's yes is very important but also the Church's no.  Without it, the people of God will be left as victims of what is unworthy of God and without grace to save them and sustain them in the blessed hope of everlasting life made possible by Jesus' death and resurrection.