In the collect of the day, our opening prayer, we prayed, “Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners” and we went on to ask God to help our hearts to be “fixed where true joys are to be found.”[1] It's a prayer that sounds perfectly at home in Lent, talking about “unruly wills and affections of sinners.” So, it may be a little surprising that in the prior prayer book, this Lenten-sounding prayer was appointed for the fourth Sunday after Easter.[2] In the middle of Eastertide. And, in fact, that’s where it had been at least since the 700s.[3] Sort of.
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