Illumine the World: Reflections on the Midday Collects
What Christian does not struggle to “pray without ceasing”? So far, I have not met one. We find ourselves pulled in a hundred different directions simultaneously: prayer is often the last thing on the list. Some of us are more prone to read a good book given the chance. Some will choose a brisk walk. Many fall prey to doom scrolling or “just a little Tik-Tok.” We easily go with those “natural” desires that well up inside of us: we follow an unspoken idea of honesty, doing what we want in order to be true to ourselves. After all, isn’t it better to pray when the desire springs up naturally from the heart? After all, the last thing we want to do is to be hypocritical.
This beautiful idea misses the mark, thanks to Original Sin. This teaching reminds us that Adam’s sin flows down to all of us. Left to ourselves, we will not spontaneously erupt in emotion but will, instead, fall back into our well-worn habits of sin. We need guides to aid us and a mold to shape us.
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The Prayer Book Helps Us Pray
This is one of the primary jobs of the Book of Common Prayer. Though it sounds like a tautology, it is beautiful as it is repetitive: the Prayer Book was written to help us to pray. It guides us, shaping us in our everyday walk with the Lord. The 2019 Prayer Book gives us four daily offices, or times for prayer: Morning, Midday, Evening, and Compline (before bed). The ordering for Midday Prayer can serve as a great way to refocus on something other than our own problems and to work on bending ourselves back out instead of staying bent in. The following collects help us do this.
Collect 1: Christ on the Cross
Blessed Savior, at this hour you hung upon the Cross, stretching out your loving arms: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may look to you and be saved; for your tender mercies’ sake. Amen.
The first collect reframes our mind on the cross and the world. Praying in the middle of the day, or somewhere between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. for most of us, sees us praying during the time when our Lord was crucified. We are calling out during that time when He, in his agony, took Psalm 22 on his lips and uttered those words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We also focus on something other than ourselves in this moment: we are not asking for help with our boss or our co-worker but are instead moving our eyes to the entire human race. We ask that all of the world would turn to him. In this light, our problems seem to fade away.
It is strangely odd how this paradox occurs. C.S. Lewis was close to the point when he talked about the virtue of humility. He argues in Mere Christianity that we should understand humility as thinking of ourselves less. The truly humble person, he argues elsewhere, is the man who could build a massive and glorious cathedral and then turn away, forgetting he even laid the first stone. Of course, we need help to turn our eyes away from ourselves and our own works. This first midday collect aids us in that turning away.
Collect 2: The Calling of St. Paul
Almighty Savior, who at mid-day called your servant Saint Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles: We pray you to illumine the world with the radiance of your glory, that all nations may come and worship you; for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The second collect moves us from the cross of our Lord to the vision of St. Paul. It is worth recounting the story from Acts 9. While on the way to Damascus to throw Christians in jail, the light of Christ’s glory blinds Saul of Tarsus. He falls to the ground, and the voice of Christ tells him to go into Damascus, and a disciple named Ananias will instruct him. The Lord reveals to Ananias that he has chosen Saul as an apostle of Christ for the Gentiles. Saul (later called Paul) receives Christian baptism; the rest is history. It is this light, this same piercing and sovereign converting power, that we ask for in this collect.
When we ask for God to convert the world, we pray to the One who can actually do this. Our Lord is not sitting in heaven, prayerfully wringing his hands as he watches disaster after disaster unfold that he cannot control. He is, rather, the Sovereign Lord. He disposes of all things after the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). He sets down kings and raises them up (Dan. 2:21); he moves the heart of every leader in the direction he chooses (Prov. 21:1). We ask him to convert the nations to his fold, and he can actually do this. What a marvelous thought!
Collect 3: The Vision of St. Paul
Father of all mercies, you revealed your boundless compassion to your apostle Saint Peter in a three-fold vision: Forgive our unbelief, we pray, and so strengthen our hearts and enkindle our zeal, that we may fervently desire the salvation of all people, and diligently labor in the extension of your kingdom; through him who gave himself for the life of the world, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Asking God to convert the world is one thing, but truly believing that he can do it is something else. We may have an intellectual acceptance that he can bring every pagan nation to himself. In the back of our minds, however, we still think, “Sure, he can do this, but, of course, he isn’t actually going to. That would never really occur.”
Our unbelief is deep-seated in our Adamic nature. Sometimes, like St. Peter, we require multiple visitations from our Lord to be convinced. We let our own evaluation of the world’s state mitigate against the vision of God we have before us in Scripture. We also need the reminder that our prayer for the conversion of the nations does not mean we get to relax while the Lord does all the work without us.
It is a beautiful paradox of Christianity that the Sovereign Lord of All condescends to work through creatures made out of the dirt. Every conversion could be like St. Paul’s: the Lord could appear in front of us in a divine light, and his booming voice could rattle us to our knees in fear and repentance. This would be fitting his majesty, power, and glory. Instead, he follows in the steps of the Incarnation: his Son humbled himself to become a baby, and now he humbles himself by using us to fulfill his plans.
Collect 4: The Incarnation of Christ
Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his Cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The final collect moves us back to ourselves. We have taken the long way around: we pray for the worldwide conversion of the nations, we ask to be part of that mission, and now we ask for aid for ourselves. Even this prayer, however, is meant to teach us. So often, when we pray for ourselves, we can fall into a soft form of self-centeredness: we pray for our needs, our situation, our feelings, our wants, our jobs, and our location. As the Lord’s Prayer, or “Our Father,” reminds us, we must have the “our” in our prayers, and our requests must be properly given. This collect guides in that.
Our Midday Prayer closes with a petition that we would be sanctified and brought to heaven through the life of our Lord. It is a closing reminder to us that we do not look to his death alone: He lived an entire life dedicated to our redemption. His Incarnation, from his virgin birth to his fasting in the desert to his nap on a boat, was all done to save his people. Every day of our lives, we recapitulate this life. We rise, we die, we are resurrected in our struggle against sin; one day, the fight will finally be over.
Photo by 4maksim from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva.
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