Praying a collect

A collect is a short (often general) prayer of a particular structure used in Christian liturgy. These prayers were grouped together, either according to subject matter or, later, following the sequence of the liturgical year. By the fifth century, the Church in Rome was referring to books of these prayers as collectio — ‘a collection’.

     Most of the collects in the Book of Common Prayer come from the Latin prayers for each Sunday of the year, and were translated into English by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (d. 1556).

     In more modern Anglican versions of the Communion service, such as Common Worship used in the Church of England, the Collect follows the Gloria and precedes readings from the Bible. It usually occurs after an invitation to prayer such as, ‘Let us pray.’

     The collect represents a dialogue between the people and God, and always has the same liturgical structure:

1. The address: Collects are addressed to a person of the Trinity, most commonly to God the Father.

2. An attribute or quality of God: this bit relates to the petition (below), such as ‘who is …’

3. The petition: this is the request part of the prayer and introduces the matter being asked about or requested.

4. The reason or result expected from the prayer.

5. A conclusion, such as ‘through Christ our Lord’ or another longer statement giving glory to God (a ‘doxology’). The most common Trinitarian conclusion is ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be for ever. Amen.

6. General affirmation ‘Amen.’

In some contemporary liturgical texts, this structure has been obscured by sentence constructions that depart from the Latin flowing style of a single sentence.

Look now at a real Collect — that for Bible Sunday. It includes each of the six elements above, and in the correct order, as indicated by square brackets:

[1] Blessed Lord,

[2] who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

[3] help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,

[4] that we may embrace and for ever hold fast
the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,

[5] who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

[6] Amen.