Behold This Thy Family: Cranmer’s Good Friday Collects
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who led the development of the Book of Common Prayer, crafted collects for Good Friday with a special emphasis on the church as the family of God. There are three collects for the day, the only occasion for which Cranmer appointed more than one. The first asks God to “behold this thy family,” the second prays for each member in his “vocation and ministry,” and the third intercedes for those not yet in the family, that they may “be converted and live.”
In some ways, Cranmer’s Good Friday collects resemble the medieval practice of nine Solemn Intercessions, now adapted in modern prayer books as the “Solemn Collects.” However, where the Solemn Intercessions covered a wide variety of topics, Cranmer’s collects offer a unified focus and message. They illustrate the meaning of Good Friday by pointing to the work and growth of the church as the family of God.
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Cranmer’s Collects
In this article, the text of the collects is taken from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
The First Good Friday Collect
Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
This collect presents a counterintuitive combination of themes: the family of the church on the one hand, and the betrayal and death of Jesus on the other. This is paradoxical because we often associate the theme of family with Jesus’ ministry in Galilee more than his atonement in Jerusalem. But the collect reminds us that it is only through Jesus’ betrayal and death that the church comes together in the first place. We are only a family because we are adopted by God through Christ and his sacrifice on the cross.
The Biblical moment that best expresses this idea is Jesus’ conversation with Mary and John from the cross:
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
John 19:26-27
From the cross, Jesus gives Mary and John to each other, drawing his unrelated disciples into a single family. Notice the use of the word “Behold” here, which Cranmer mimics in the collect, “…behold this thy family.”
The 2019 BCP retains this collect in the “Collects of the Christian Year,” where it is appointed for Good Friday alongside the other Holy Week Collects (BCP 608).
The Second Good Friday Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified; receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before thee, for all estates of men in thy holy Church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry, may truly and godly serve thee, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The second collect is notable as a prayer for “every member” of the church. The medieval version of this prayer had focused on the vocations of the bishops and the clergy. Here, Cranmer applies the idea of “vocation and ministry” to “all estates of men in thy Holy Church.” In other words, Cranmer does not erase the distinction between clergy and laity, but he insists that each of these estates has a vocation and ministry given by God. Every member of the family has an essential part to play.
The 2019 BCP retains this collect in the Solemn Collects of the Good Friday Liturgy (BCP 568).
The Third Good Friday Collect
O Merciful God, who has made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live: Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
This third collect turns from those inside the family of God in the church to those outside the family of God. In its discussion of those who do not believe in Christ, it avoids hatred and seeks rather to extend mercy to the nations so that they may “be converted and live.” Mirroring the first collect on the family, the language here is of coming home.
From a contemporary perspective, this collect seems ethnically insensitive. We think of Jews and Turks as ethnic or national categories, under which there are Jewish or Turkish believers in Christ. At the time of Cranmer, however, these were the generic terms for those practicing Jewish or Muslim religions. “Infidel” had the meaning of those who opposed the faith, and “Hereticks” meant those who claimed belief, but had false doctrine. For Cranmer, this list was an expansive evangelical appeal for those in spiritual need.
Moreover, Cranmer’s collect was a significant improvement on the treatment of the Jews in the medieval Solemn Intercessions. One of the nine medieval prayers was devoted to “the faithless Jews,” and a practice emerged of refusing to kneel during this prayer. By contrast, Cranmer removed the word “faithless,” instead using the related term Infidel for a separate category outside the flock of Christ. And Cranmer strategically deployed the image of the lost sheep, which includes hope for salvation in returning to the fold. The Roman Catholic church also removed the phrase “faithless Jews” in 1960, at the direction of Pope John XXIII.
In the 2019 BCP, the Solemn Collects include a version of this prayer, in which the ethnic terms are replaced by a more general reference to “all who do not know you as you are revealed in your Son Jesus Christ” (BCP, 570).
A Family Reunion at the Cross
Taken together, the Good Friday collects teach us to find our family identity at the cross. Like Mary and John, it is precisely at the foot of the cross that we receive one another. We are a family in the forgiveness of Christ.
In this light, Good Friday becomes a kind of family reunion, an annual gathering at which we retell our origin story and replenish our missionary purpose. Just as God had mercy on us, so we pray that he would extend his mercy and expand our family with new converts from all nations.
Image: The Crucifixion by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (c.1475-1533), courtesy of Rijksmuseum and Canva.
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