Trinity 7 - Graft, Increase, Nourish & Keep us

“It would be difficult to find a prayer of human composition more beautiful than this – spiritual in its petitions; illustrative in its style; and comprehensive in its sentiments.' (James on the Collects, 206)

Lord of all power and might, who are the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 6:19-23
The Gospel: St. Mark 8:1-9

The present form of this collect is a loose Cranmerian translation (made in 1549) of the form of the collect found in the Sacramentary of Gelasius. It begins by making mention of two important attributes of God – He is almighty (having all power and might) and good (all good things being both created by and coming from him). Both are essential characteristics of God. If he were good but not all-powerful he might be unable to accomplish the good things he desires. Likewise, if he were all-powerful but not all good, we would forever live in the fear that he might use his strength for wickedness. As we approach God in prayer, it is important to affirm both that his will is always good and that he has the power to accomplish it (thus we may in sincerity pray “thy will be done”).

We now come to the collect’s Petition, which has four parts. The main verb of each clause helps us to see what we are asking for in each: graft, increase, nourish and keep. Let us consider them each in turn.

Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name. The way in which the Bible describes the heart of mankind leaves little room for the modern notion that all people are basically good. Consider, for example, Jeremiah’s description of the heart of man: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (17:9a). Now consider what the Greatest Commandment requires of us: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5; cf. Matthew 22:37). If the heart is desperately wicked, how is it at all possible to obey the most fundamental commandment of God? The difficulty of this dilemma was not lost upon Israel (nor her prophets), upon whose lips were prayers such as: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer” and “Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 19:14; 51:10). 

One of the greatest promises that God makes to his people in the Old Testament is based upon his intimate knowledge of the wickedness of their hearts.[ii] He gives his people hope by promising: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Jesus is the means by which this promise was finally fulfilled. Through his atoning death and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, hearts are cleansed (by faith), purified, enlightened and made the dwelling place of Christ himself (see Acts 15:9; Matthew 5:8; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 3:17).

In light of our need for God to remake and cleanse our hearts (if we are to love him), it is both fitting and necessary that this is the first of the four Petitions in this collect.

Increase in us true religion. If some religion is true, it stands to reason that other religion is false. The contrast here is not between Christianity and other religions, but between a Christian faith and practice that is acceptable to God (and thus “true”) and that which is Christian in form, while in reality lacking something which God requires as essential.

Precedent for making a distinction between true and false religion is found in both the Old and the New Testament. For instance: St. James warns us that not all that we may consider true religion is necessarily “pure and undefiled before God” (James 1:27). Likewise, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for having an external form of religion but in fact being blind to what God really desires from his people. And one of the central messages of the prophets may be summed up by this verse: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices (i.e. the external forms of religions devotion), as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice . . .” (1 Samuel 15:22).

Religion that is true is always growing. Recall Jesus’ parable of the sower in which the good soil is that in which the Word of God is “held fast in an honest and good heart” and therefore it bears great fruit.[iii] (Thus at Confirmation the bishop prays that the Holy Spirit would “daily increase” in us his “manifold gifts of grace (etc.)).”[iv]

nourish us with all goodness. If we are to persist in the love of God and in true worship, we shall quickly become aware of how dependent we are upon God’s continued grace towards us. We shall need to be regularly forgiven for our sins and renewed by the strength which his grace provides. In both Morning and Evening Prayer, we ask God (from whom cometh every good and perfect gift) to “pour upon them (the clergy and the congregations committed to their charge) the continual dew of thy blessing.” God himself provides the means by which we may increase in true religion, namely the Church’s ministry of Word and Sacrament. Just as Jesus fed the multitude, lest they lack the nourishment to go on their way, so too has God provided his Church with all the nourishment she needs to love and obey him.

and of thy great mercy keep us in the same . . . This final clause of the Petition re-presents all three of the previous requests. We are praying that we might not only truly love, worship and be nourished by God today but that this might be true of us everyday – so that on the final day (as a result of his grace daily at work within us) we might be found pleasing and acceptable in his sight.