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In Christian liturgy, a collect (stressed on the first syllable: /ˈkɒlɛkt/, US dict: kol′·ekt) is both a liturgical action and a short, general prayer. In the Middle Ages, the prayer was referred to in Latin as collectio, but in the more ancient sources, as oratio. Collects appear in the liturgies of Roman Catholic, Anglican,and Lutheran churches, among others.
Liturgical collect
The liturgical collect is a dialog between the celebrant and the people. It follows a hymn of praise such as the "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" after the opening of the service. It starts with the celebrant's greeting, "The Lord be with you", to which the people respond, "And also with you" or, "And with your spirit." The celebrant then invites all to pray by saying, "Let us pray". In the more ancient practice, an invitation to kneel was given, and the people spent some short time in silent prayer, after which they were invited to stand. Then, the celebrant concluded the time of prayer by "collecting" their prayers in a unified petition of a general form, referred to as a collect. Many collects in use today were originally composed in Latin, wherein they adhered to a flowing chanted style. Traditionally, a collect consisted of a single sentence, although this was often accomplished through non-standard punctuation, with a colon or semi-colon taking the place of a period. In some contemporary liturgical texts, this practice has been discontinued in favor of more standard sentence constructions.
In contemporary Catholic usage, the collect corresponds to the Opening Prayer. It is sung or recited audibly throughout by the celebrant, and follows the invocation "Let us pray", usually without a period of silent prayer. It may or may not employ the greeting dialog.
Typically two or three collects may be used in a traditional Roman Mass.
For the Anglican rite, Thomas Cranmer (d. 1556) translated collects into English and designated them for each Sunday of the year in the Book of Common Prayer.
Similarly, Lutheran liturgies typically retain traditional collects for each Sunday of the liturgical year. In the newly released Evangelical Lutheran Worship, 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.
Form
Collects (the liturgical action and the prayer) have a recognizable form:
Invitation ("Oremus" - Let us pray)Address (the person of the Trinity who is being addressed, but usually the Father)Description of an attribute or quality of the deity that relates to the petition (often "qui ..." - who)The Petition (the matter being asked about or requested)The Reason or Result expected (begins with the word "ut" - that)Christian conclusion ("per Christum Dominum nostrum" - through Christ our Lord), or other longer doxologiesGeneral affirmation ("Amen.", untranslated from the Hebrew)