And the Collect for today is ...

A collect is a short prayer.

Its name comes from the Middle Ages when such prayers were grouped
together and referred to as collectio (hence our modern phrase, ‘collection of’).

The collect is intended to sound a bit like a dialogue between the people present and God. It usually starts after a short invitation to prayer such as, ‘Let us pray.’

A collect always has the same structure:

• The address: like a letter, a collect is directed toward someone. Collects are addressed to a person of the Trinity, almost always to God the Father.
• An attribute or quality of God: this bit relates to the petition (below), and usually starts with the words, ‘who is …’
• The petition itself: this part is the actual prayer and introduces the matter being asked about or requested.
• The reason or result expected from the prayer.
• A conclusion, such as ‘through Christ our Lord’ or another longer doxology. The most common Trinitarian conclusion is ‘through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.’
• The affirmation: ‘Amen.’

A good example is the Collect for Easter Day, which contains each of these six elements in the correct order:

• Lord of all life and power,
  
  
• who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
  overcame the old order of sin and death
  to make all things new in him:
  
  
• grant that we, being dead to sin
  and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
• may reign with him in glory;
  
  
• to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
  be praise and honour, glory and might,
  now and in all eternity. 

•  Amen.

Hands together and eyes closed --- and pray

It’s important to find a posture that actually works for us, when we pray. In the past, most people prayed while kneeling down, with their hands together. Why?

     Medieval societies were highly organised in terms of people’s social status, with the king at the very top and slaves at the bottom. Everyone knew their place in such a society, so everyone was conscious of status and looked above and below to preserve order. It was important.

        One of the ways in which this feudal society maintained its order was a simple display of status known as ‘homage’. For example peasants would pay homage to their local baron; barons would pay homage to their lord; and lords all paid homage to the king at the top of this social pyramid.

The rite of homage was simple. The person of lower status knelt before the person of higher status. As he knelt, he placed his hands together in front of his face. His overlord stood before him (or sat on a throne), and placed his own hands over the hands of his underling. Prayers and oaths were said, and thereby cemented the feudal bond.

        In exactly the same way, when we come before God, we acknowledge that he is vastly greater than we are. So we pay him homage and renew our relationship. We do so kneeling before him, with our hands together and outstretched before us.

Image of King Edward III of England paying homage to the king of France as his feudal overlord.
© The National library of Paris