Brush up your rubrics: collects

This post is just a reminder of rules around the way collects, the prayer used as part of the concluding section of the hours (aka the collect).

(1)  Where collect occurs

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……

(2) Where to find the collect

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

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, and 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.

Page numbers for the collects to be used each week can be found in the Ordo.

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)

(3) The conclusions to the collects

Most of the time Office books do not write out the full conclusions to the collects, they just provide a few key words to remind you to use it, such as PER DOMINUM NOSTRUM, or THROUGH OUR LORD.

There are several different conclusions to the collects, indicated by slightly different key words.  You can find them written out in full in the Diurnal on page xxix.

Hope this helps...

Do let me know if anything is not clear, or you think I've made a mistake.

St Raymund Nonnatus (EF), Aug 31

St Raymond being nourished by angels
Eugenio Caxes

From the martyrology:

"At Cardona, in Spain, St. Raymond Nonnatus, Cardinal and confessor, of the Order of Mercedarians, renowned for holiness of life and miracles."

The wikipedia notes that:

"According to Mercedarian tradition, he was born at Portell (today part of Sant Ramon), in the Diocese of Urgell, and became a member of the Mercedarian Order, founded to ransom Christian captives from the Moors of North Africa. He was ordained a priest in 1222 and later became master-general of the order. He traveled to North Africa and is said to have surrendered himself as a hostage when his money ran out.

He suffered in captivity. A legend states that the Moors bored a hole through his lips with a hot iron, and padlocked his mouth to prevent him from preaching. He was ransomed by his order and in 1239 returned to Spain. He died at Cardona, sixty miles from Barcelona, either on August 26 or on August 31, 1240. Many miracles were attributed to him before and after his death."

August 30: SS Felix and Audauctus, Memorial

Saints Felix and Adauctus (d. 303 AD) were Christian martyrs who are believed to have lived during the reigns of Diocletian and Maximian.  Felix, a Roman priest, and brother of another priest, also named Felix, being ordered to offer sacrifice to the gods. But at the prayer of the saint the idols fell shattered to the ground. He was then led to execution. On the way an unknown person joined him, professed himself a Christian, and also received the crown of martyrdom. The Christians gave him the name Adauctus (the Latin word for "added"). They were both beheaded.

Beheading of St John the Baptist (Aug 29)

In one of those cutesy euphemisms, this feast has been renamed the 'Passion of John the Baptist' in the Ordinary Form.

The martyrology describes it thus:

"The beheading of St. John the Baptist, who was put to death by Herod about the feast of Easter. However, the solemn commemoration takes place today, when his venerable head was found for the second time. It was afterwards solemnly carried to Rome, where it is kept in the church of St. Silvester, near Campo Marzio, and honored by the people with the greatest devotion."

This saint has a particular significance for Benedictines, as when he moved to Monte Cassino, St Benedict built a chapel in honour of St John the Baptist where previously had stood an altar to Apollo.

In many respects St John represents the two sides of the Benedictine charism - in his ascetic life in the desert, he points to the contemplative dimension; in his work preparing the way for Our Lord by calling the people to repentance, the active dimension.

August 29: The beheading of St. John the Baptist

Today is one of the feast days of one of the most important saints in the calendar, St John the Baptist.

In one of those cutesy euphemisms, this feast has been renamed the 'Passion of John the Baptist' in the Ordinary Form.

The martyrology, however, describes it thus:

"The beheading of St. John the Baptist, who was put to death by Herod about the feast of Easter. However, the solemn commemoration takes place today, when his venerable head was found for the second time. It was afterwards solemnly carried to Rome, where it is kept in the church of St. Silvester, near Campo Marzio, and honored by the people with the greatest devotion." 

This saint has a particular significance for Benedictines, as when he moved to Monte Cassino, St Benedict built a chapel in honour of St John the Baptist where previously had stood an altar to Apollo.

In many respects St John represents the two sides of the Benedictine charism - in his ascetic life in the desert, he points to the contemplative dimension; in his work preparing the way for Our Lord by calling the people to repentance, the active dimension.

The Vespers hymn for the feast is Deus tuorum militum sors.

August 28: Feast of St Augustine, Bishop, Confessor and Doctor

St. Augustine of Hippo is not of course a Benedictine saint. Still, he was an important influence on St. Benedict and the Western monastic tradition in general.

St Augustine's monastic rules are amongst the earliest surviving monastic rules of the Western Church, and reflect the moderation that St. Benedict was to make central to his Rule. He is also a champion of the combination of learning with faith, another Benedictine quality.

There are many quotes from St. Augustine in the Rule, but one of the most interesting areas of St. Augustine's theological influence in the Rule is in the Tools of Good Works (Chapter Four). The injunction "To attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good one sees in oneself, but to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing, and to impute it to oneself," reflects St. Augustine's anti-Pelagian approach over the position being advocated at the time by the Eastern-influenced monks of Lerins, and finally resolved at the contemporary Council of Orange in 529.

St Joseph Calasanctius (EF)/St Monica (OF), Aug 27

From the martyrology:

"At Rome, the demise of St. Joseph, confessor, illustrious by the innocence of his life and miracles, who, to instruct youth in piety and letters, founded the Order of the Poor Clerks Regular of the pious Schools of the Mother of God."

In the Extraordinary Form, St Monica's feast is on May 4, however it was moved, in 1970, to the day before the feast of the son, St Augustine, she converted by her tears, prayers and admonitions.