Learning the Office 2.11 - The concluding prayers of the Office Pt 2: The collect and its concluding formulas

Christ both composed and established prayers for us to intercede with the Lord.  When, therefore the apostles sought to entreat with God and did not know how to intercede, they said to Christ: ‘Lord, teach us to pray’, that is, compose prayers for us.  Immediately the Lord taught from the book of the heavenly law how they should pray or how they should beseech the Lord.  From this the custom of the church has grown to entreat God by prayers against sorrows of the soul and to use prayers like those that Christ constituted, and like those the first Greeks began to compose by which the Lord was supplicated.

Isidore of Seville, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, Bk I ch 9.

The closing prayers follow the same basic structure at all the hours.

There are potentially two key moving parts though -  the collect and the commemoration(s).  This post covers collects.

About collects

If you read the description of the Office in the Rule of St Benedict, you will not find an explicit reference to the saying of a collect - instead St Benedict uses rather more generic descriptions of the concluding prayers.

There are two main theories to explain this.

The first is that the term 'missae' generally translated as dismissal, did in fact include some intercessory prayers of the type that appear in later breviaries, such as prayers for absent brethren.

The alternative, though, is that collects were not included because of the specifically monastic, as opposed to clerical, character of the Benedictine Office in its origins.

St Jerome, for example, mentions that the saying of the collect was thought appropriate to a priest rather than a (normally lay) monk, and there are some early descriptions examples of the clergy joining the Office specifically to say the collect and give the blessing.  And as late as the thirteenth century, William Durandus gives the collect of the Office a specifically priestly character in his description of the Office.

In their earliest form, collects probably didn't follow the annual liturgical cycle as they do now.

Instead, the earliest surviving set of Office collects from sixth century Rome, which were probably used in the 'tituli' (more or less equivalent to parish churches) provided two for each day of the week, probably for Matins and Vespers respectively.

As the Office developed over time, though, the Office became less ferial and more aligned to the changes of seasons, saints and liturgical weeks in part by using the same collects at both the Mass and Office, at least for some of the hours.

Where the collect occurs in the Office

The collect is part of the concluding section of each of the day hours.  The table below show where it fits in the standard closing of each hour.

LATIN	ENGLISH
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison	Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy
Pater noster…	Our Father…
Domine, exaudi orationem meam Et clamor meus ad te veniat	O Lord hear my prayer And let my prayer come unto Thee
Oremus	Let us pray
INSERT  COLLECT HERE
[Sometimes at Lauds and/or Vespers: commemoration]
Domine, exaudi orationem meam Et clamor meus ad te veniat	O Lord hear my prayer And let my prayer come unto Thee
Benedicamus Domino Deo Gratias	Let us bless the Lord Thanks be to God
Fidelium animae… [omitted at Compline and replaced with blessing]	May the souls of the faithful departed……

Where to find the text of the collect

At some hours and days, the collect is a fixed part of the hour or Office.

In particular, the collect is the same each day at Prime and Compline (a few very special days such as All Souls and the Sacred Triduum), and can be found in the psalter section of your Office book.

Similarly, on fourth class Saturdays (Class IV), the collect for Matins, Lauds and Terce to None is from the Office of Our Lady on Saturday (note some monasteries also retain the older custom of starting the Office of Our Lady on Saturday at Friday Vespers).

At all the other hours, the collect will be of the week (the relevant Sunday of the year), day or feast, and so will normally be found in either the Proper of the Season or Proper of Saints (or Common if there isn't a proper prayer) section of the Diurnal.  

For most of the year the 'default' collect, used on days that are not feasts from Saturday Vespers (I Vespers of Sunday) to Friday Vespers is that of the Sunday of the year.  Note that it is the same prayer that is said at (the EF) Mass.  During the more intensive times of the liturgical year, there may a collect (or even two) for each day of the week.

The table below summarises the source of the collect for each hour.

HOUR	SOURCE OF COLLECT
Matins, Lauds, Terce-None	Sunday - Friday (or Saturday if Class III without a proper prayer): Of the Sunday (ie the week), day or feast Class IV Saturdays: Of the Office of Our Lady
Prime	Collect of Prime, Monastic Diurnal  (MD) and Antiphonale Monasticum (AM) pg 8 (Domine Deus omnipotens...)
Vespers	Sunday-Friday: Of the Sunday (ie the week), day or feast Saturdays: Of the coming Sunday
Compline	Collect of Compline, MD 264, AM 173 (Visita quaesumus Domine)

The simplest way to work out where to fine the appropriate collect in your book is to use an Ordo, such as the one on the Saints Will Arise Blog.

The conclusions to the collects

Collects generally end in one of several set formulas.

Most of the time Office books do not, however, write out the full conclusions to the collects, they just provide a few key words to remind you to add it to the text provided.

It is important to keep in mind that there are several different conclusions to the collects, indicated by slightly different key words, such as PER DOMINUM NOSTRUM, or PER EUNDEM DOMINUM.

You can find the full set of variants written out in full in the Diurnal on page xxix.

If you look at the concluding prayers for Compline, at MD 264, the collect appears in the Diurnal more or less like this (I've bolded the key words):

Oratio . Orémus. Vísita, quǽsumus, Dómine, habitatiónem istam, et omnes insídias inimíci ab ea lónge repélle: Ángeli tui sancti hábitent in ea, qui nos in pace custódiant; et benedíctio tua sit super nos semper. Per Dóminum nostrum . R. Amen.

Prayer Let us pray  Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let Thy holy angels dwell herein to preserve us in peace, and let Thy blessing be always upon us. Through our Lord, R. Amen.

Instead of just saying 'Per Dominum nostrum' or 'Through our Lord', though, you need to add on the whole conclusion to the prayer.

So what you actually say is:

Orémus. Vísita, quǽsumus, Dómine, habitatiónem istam, et omnes insídias inimíci ab ea lónge repélle: Ángeli tui sancti hábitent in ea, qui nos in pace custódiant; et benedíctio tua sit super nos semper. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum.  Amen.

Let us pray Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let thy holy angels dwell herein to preserve us in peace, and let thy blessing be always upon us. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, Who with Thee liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

You can find the ending written out in the Diurnal in the reference material at the front of the Diurnal on MD  xxix.

It looks like this:


The words in upper case are the cue words that the Diurnal gives you to tell you which one to use, so it is important to be able to find this page when you need it, and recognise the cues.

Singing the collect

The chant tones for the collects can be found in the Antiphonale Monasticum.

There is a solemn tone, for use at Lauds and Vespers at AM 1237, and simple tone for the other hours at AM 1240.

The antiphonale also provides chant tones for the alternative endings (AM 1241).

SUMMARY

A collect, or short prayer, is included in the concluding prayers of each of the hours.

At Prime and Compline it is the same each day; the Office of Our Lady on Saturday also has a fixed collect.  At the other hours the ‘default’ collect is of the Sunday, but feasts, special days and during some seasons of the year special collect(s) displace the Sunday collect.

Most office books do not write out the conclusion to the collect in full – instead it gives you a few words as a cue to the appropriate ending.

And you can find the next part of this series, covering commemorations, here.