The collect ( ) is a short general
prayer
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified a ...
of a particular structure used in
Christian liturgy
Christian liturgy is a pattern for Christian worship, worship used (whether recommended or prescribed) by a Christian congregation or Christian denomination, denomination on a regular basis. The term liturgy comes from Greek and means "public wor ...
.
Collects appear in the liturgies of
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
,
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
,
Oriental Orthodox,
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
,
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...
,
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
, and
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
churches, among others (in those of
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...
the Greek term ''
éesissynapté'' is often used instead of the Latin term ''
ratio
In mathematics, a ratio shows how many times one number contains another. For example, if there are eight oranges and six lemons in a bowl of fruit, then the ratio of oranges to lemons is eight to six (that is, 8:6, which is equivalent to the ...
collecta'', both having the same meaning).
Etymology
The word comes from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''collēcta'', the term used in Rome in the 5th century
[C. Frederick Barbee, Paul F.M. Zahl, ''The Collects of Thomas Cranmer'']
(Eerdmans 1999 ), pp. ix-xi and the 10th,
[Edward McNamara ZENIT liturgy questions, 28 August 2012]
although in the
Tridentine version of the
Roman Missal
The Roman Missal ( la, Missale Romanum) is the title of several missals used in the celebration of the Roman Rite. Along with other liturgical books of the Roman Rite, the Roman Missal contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the m ...
the more generic term ''oratio'' (prayer) was used instead.
[
The Latin word ''collēcta'' meant the gathering of the people together (from ''colligō'', "to gather") and may have been applied to this prayer as said before the procession to the church in which ]Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
was celebrated. It may also have been used to mean a prayer that collected into one the prayers of the individual members of the congregation.[
]
Structure
A collect generally has five parts:
*Invocation or address: indicating the person of Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
addressed, usually God the Father
God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, God the Son Jesus Christ, and the third person, God t ...
, rarely God the Son
God the Son ( el, Θεὸς ὁ υἱός, la, Deus Filius) is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus as the incarnation of God, united in essence (consubstantial) but distinct in ...
*Acknowledgement: description of a divine attribute that relates to the petition (often ''qui ...'' - who ... )
*Petition: "for one thing only and that in the tersest language"
*Aspiration:
**The desired result (begins with the word ''ut'' - in order that)
**Indication of a further purpose of the petition
*Pleading:
**Conclusion indicating the mediation of Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
.
**Response by the people: Amen
Amen ( he, אָמֵן, ; grc, ἀμήν, ; syc, ܐܡܝܢ, ; ar, آمين, ) is an Abrahamic declaration of affirmation which is first found in the Hebrew Bible, and subsequently found in the New Testament. It is used in Jewish, Christian, and ...
In some contemporary liturgical texts, this structure has been obscured by sentence constructions that depart from the straightforwardness of a single sentence.
Variations
Roman Catholicism
Initially, only one collect was said at Mass, but the Tridentine version of the Roman Missal allowed and often prescribed the use of more than one collect, all but the first being recited under a single conclusion. This custom, which began north of the Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
, had reached Rome by about the 12th century.
In the 1973 translation of the Roman Missal by the ICEL
The International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) is a commission set up by a number of episcopal conferences of English-speaking countries for the purpose of providing English translations of the liturgical books of the Roman Rite, t ...
, the word ''collecta'' was rendered as "Opening Prayer". This was a misnomer, since the collect ends—rather than opens—the introductory rites of the Mass. This prayer is said immediately before the Epistle.
Anglicanism
The collects in the ''Book of Common Prayer
The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
'' are mainly translations by Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry' ...
(d. 1556) from the Latin prayers for each Sunday of the year. At Morning Prayer, the ''Collect of the Day'' is followed by a ''Collect for Peace'' and a ''Collect for Grace''. At Evening Prayer the ''Collect of the Day'' is followed by a ''Collect for Peace'' which differs from the version used at Morning Prayer, and a ''Collect for Aid against Perils'', which starts with the well known phrase; "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night...".
At Holy Communion
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted ...
, the ''Collect of the Day'' is followed by a reading from the Epistles. In more modern Anglican versions of the Communion service, such as '' Common Worship'' used in the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
or the 1979 ''Book of Common Prayer'' used in the Episcopal Church in the United States
The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of ...
, the ''Collect of the Day'' follows the '' Gloria'' and precedes readings from the Bible.
Lutheranism
Similarly, Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
liturgies typically retain traditional collects for each Sunday of the liturgical year. In the newly released ''Evangelical Lutheran Worship
''Evangelical Lutheran Worship'' (''ELW'') is the current primary liturgical and worship guidebook and hymnal for use in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, replacing its predecessor, the ...
'', however, the set of prayers has been expanded to incorporate different Sunday collects for each year of the lectionary cycle, so that the prayers more closely coordinate with the lectionary scripture readings for the day. To achieve this expansion from one year's worth of Sunday collects to three years', modern prayer texts have been added.
French Protestantism
The Huguenots
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss politica ...
used collects derived from the Psalms and published in the Psalter in 1563.
Scottish Presbyterianism
The "Oraisons" of the French Psalter were translated by and published in the Scottish Metrical Psalter in 1595. Over time the use of written prayers fell out of favor in the Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland.
The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...
.
See also
* Kontakion
The kontakion (Greek , plural , ''kontakia'') is a form of hymn performed in the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic liturgical traditions.
The kontakion originated in the Byzantine Empire around the 6th century and is closely associated with Sain ...
* Stir-up Sunday
References
{{Authority control
Christian prayer
Latin religious words and phrases
Order of Mass