" A term often used for the day referred to as "the Sunday next before Advent" by a rubric in the 1662 BCP. This phrase was then used in the 1892 and 1928 American Prayer Books as a title for the day which had previously been designated simply as "The Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity," which was the last Sunday before the season of Advent. The term comes from the opening words of the collect of the day in the 1549 and later Prayer Books, "Stir-up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." The Latin word translated "stir-up" is excita. In the Sarum Missal the collects of the first, second, and fourth Sundays of Advent also began with this word. These collects date back to the Gregorian Sacramentary, a manuscript from the late eighth century which purports to be the liturgy of the time of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, 590-604.
The emphasis for the last Sunday before Advent is different in the 1979 BCP. Although Christ the King Sunday is not officially celebrated in the Episcopal Church, the collect for the last Sunday of the liturgical year (Proper 29) in the 1979 BCP prays that all the peoples of the earth may be brought together under the "most gracious rule" of Christ, "the King of kings and Lord of lords" (BCP, p. 236). However, the collect for the third Sunday of Advent begins with the prayer "Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us. . . ." (BCP, p. 212). See Christ the King Sunday.
