What Is a Collect? Learn About This Ancient Form of Prayer
W. David O. Taylor
4 min read ⭑
Three questions that I’ve often answered over the past few years are: What exactly is a collect? Is it a CAW-lect or a cuh-LECT? (It’s the former.) And why did I choose to work nearly exclusively with this form of prayer?
A collect is an old form of prayer, concise in form and immensely useful to any circumstance of life. It is also a theologically disciplined prayer. Dating back to the fifth century, the collect is rooted in a basic biblical pattern that “collects” the prayers of God’s people. As C. Frederick Barbee and Paul F. M. Zahl explain:
This at-first extemporaneous prayer would later also be connected to the Epistle and Gospel appointed for the day. A Collect is a short prayer that asks “for one thing only” … and is peculiar to the liturgies of the Western Churches, being unknown in the Churches of the East. It is also a literary form (an art comparable to the sonnet) usually, but not always, consisting of five parts.
Deep Trivedi; Unsplash
The “five parts” that Barbee and Zahl speak of include, nearly always, the following things:
1. Name God.
2. Remember God’s activity or attributes.
3. State your petition.
4. State your desired hope.
5. End by naming God again.
While covering a good deal of ground, the collect is notable for its economy. It’s a blessedly short prayer. It’s short because it typically revolves around one idea only, which in principle is drawn from Scripture. In doing so, several benefits accrue to the one who prays it.
Most basically, it invites us to call to mind what God has done in the past before we make our present petitions known. We remember before we request, and we look back on the faithfulness of God in the lives of others prior to welcoming the faithfulness of God in our own.
The collect also offers an opportunity to discover how the triune God attends to the details of our lives. If the devil is in the details, as the common saying goes, God is in the details infinitely more so. God is intimately interested in those specific aspects of our lives — doing laundry, suffering illness, aging rapidly, fighting traffic, spending time with a friend — where we find ourselves actually believing, or disbelieving, that God wishes to meet us in the pain and pleasure of our life’s circumstances.
Another way of making this point is that the collect is a concrete species of prayer. It deals with one concrete thing without, hopefully, devolving to idiosyncratic vocabulary. My prayer for the pandemic, for instance, was born out of a specific experience that was foisted upon our world, but its language is “open” enough to make it useful to present-day circumstances where plague-like tragedies may require a prayer drawn from the ancient language of the psalmists.
“The stuff of life, then, that populates collect prayers is of a concrete sort, without being distractingly subjective, and in this way the prayers offer themselves as universally accessible, capable of being prayed by all sorts of people in all manner of life settings. ”
The stuff of life, then, that populates collect prayers is of a concrete sort, without being distractingly subjective, and in this way the prayers offer themselves as universally accessible, capable of being prayed by all sorts of people in all manner of life settings.
Collects are typically written prayers. Some of us who, like me, were reared in contexts where extemporaneous prayers were privileged over written ones may feel uncomfortable praying such prayers. While it may take a little getting used to, written prayers offer us a unique gift, as I have come to experience firsthand.
In this vein, I’ve given a good deal of attention to crafting these prayers in the hope they will reward repeated praying. Much like the poetry of the Psalms, collects involve a dense mix of language and imagery, and the words at best say exactly what needs saying to God and what needs saying continually to God.
For those who feel that their prayer lives have dried up, our hope is that they will discover in these pages fresh language to revitalize their prayer lives. For those who seek help to pray the common aspects of their lives — when grumpy or happy, after nightmares, or for tasks that seem impossible, like facing the onset of dementia or the possibility of an irreparable marriage — we trust that they will find plenty of practical assistance for such matters.
For those who find themselves at the margins of the church or, worse, on the brink of losing their faith, our sincerest hope is that they will find here language that lets them give honest expression to the hard edges of their personal lives, as with, say, a struggle against a mental disorder or to the damaged aspects of their common lives today, such as the warmongering of politicians or the abusive behavior of church leaders.
May these prayers help you to open up your heart to God anew and strengthen your bonds of affection with fellow pilgrims who earnestly wish for the same. And may you find joy afresh in your life of prayer with the God who meets you in the face of Jesus Christ and whose Spirit lovingly guides and guards you on the pilgrim way (Psalm 84:5).
David Taylor is a theologian, author, speaker, priest and director of initiatives in art and faith. A professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, he has lectured widely on the arts, from Thailand to South Africa. He has written for The Washington Post, Image Journal, Theology Today, Worship, Religion News Service, Christianity Today and Books & Culture, among others. He lives in Austin with his wife Phaedra, a visual artist and gardener, and his daughter Blythe and son Sebastian.
Taken from “Prayers for the Pilgrimage” by W. David O. Taylor. Copywrite ©2024. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.
