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Last weekend I attended the Baccalaureate Mass of a Jesuit preparatory school, and the Propers were quite similar to those of the Eucharist I offered on Sunday morning. I am used to the Readings on Sundays in the Episcopal Church resembling those of the Roman Catholic Church. But a similarity in Collects of the Day is new to me.

Here is the Opening Prayer in the Roman Mass for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (5 June 2016):

Almighty God, from whom every good gift proceeds, grant that by your inspiration we may discern those things that are right and, by your merciful guidance, do them. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

And here is the Collect of the Day in the Episcopal Church for the Third Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5 on 5 June 2016):

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Practically the Collects are the same. A bit of research indicates that it was originally appointed in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries for the Fourth Sunday after the Easter Octave. From Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer through the BCP 1928 it was used on the Fifth Sunday after Easter or Rogation Day. The recognition that all good comes from God echoes the seventeenth verse of the Letter of James: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (The New Revised Standard Version).

I invite your comment.