Do you prefer when the prayers of the people are read completely by a worship leader? Do you prefer to have a portion of the prayer when you can offer your own prayers silently or aloud?
For the next three weeks, we will explore three different types of prayers:
1) Collect
2) Litany
3) Contemplative Prayer
This week, we focus on collects.
The most recent version** of the
Book of Common Worship
(
p. 1099) has very helpful commentary on what a collect is:
"The
collect
(pronounced CALL-ect) is a brief and simple form of prayer that Christians have used since at least the fifth century. This form of prayer is called a 'collect' because it gathers into a few words the biblical images and liturgical themes for a particular day. Since these prayers are often used near the beginning of a service, there is also a sense in which they help to gather the hearts and minds of the people of God for worship.
The pattern for the collect form of prayer is this:
1. Address to God
2. Description of some attribute or action of God
3. Petition, based on that attribute or action
4. Result clause ('that . . .'), indicating the purpose of the petition
5. Concluding doxology
For example (using Exod. 16 and John 6):
Lord God, our gracious provider,
as you fed your people with manna,
nourish us today with your word
that we may live and grow in faith;
through Christ, the bread of heaven.
This can become a model for spontaneous prayer as well as written liturgy."
This week,
I invite you to pray a different collect each day.
You can find a list of collects in the
Book of Common Prayer.
There is a section called "The Collects" that you can click on this
helpful interactive website.
There is also a list of collects specific to this time of COVID-19, which can be found in the list of
Prayers and Liturgies for the COVID-19 Pandemic
developed by the Episcopal Church.
I encourage you to write a collect this week.
Follow the five-point pattern listed above. It can be a few words or a few paragraphs
.
We each have opportunities to pray each day. We have unique prayers and a collective call as we seek to pray for one another, our community, our country, and our world this day and always.
A collect for today written by Kathleen Staudt:
Loving God, we pray for this church community in this time of crisis. Deliver us from simply desiring to go “back to normal," and give us grace instead to be open to the opportunities that your Spirit brings in this time of separation. Grant that we may come out of this crisis with open eyes, more fully available to the needs of those most vulnerable, and those whose labor we have always depended on. Give us creative hearts to embrace and carry forward the new ways we have found to connect with one another; and in your good time bring us safely back together as a people renewed in the knowledge of your faithfulness and abiding love and strengthened for the work.
Amen.
**A PDF of an older version of the
Book of Common Worship
can be found
here
.
