Common Worship: Additional Collects: (Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England)

The Additional Collects, approved by the General Synod in 2004, were commissioned in response to a request for 'additional collects in a worthy contemporary idiom'. They are intended to be: short; simple in syntax; vivid and interesting in their themes and imagery; accessible in the kind of language they use; and, clear and distinct in their meaning. The Additional Collects are all based on new compositions by members of the Liturgical Commission. Each collect was first revised by the Commission itself and then by a revision committee of General Synod members. They are being published in a new volume containing all the original Common Worship Collects and Post Communions as well as the new Additional Collects, and also in a separate booklet on their own. What is a collect? A collect is a 'collecting prayer', a prayer that gathers together, that can be said in a range of situations. In the Eucharist it concludes The Gathering (the first part of the service, in which those present are formed into a worshipping congregation) and sums up the (usually silent) prayers of the people. At other services it brings to a close a period of intercession or thanksgiving. In the Church of England a collects is also chosen as the 'prayer of the week'. People learn the collects by heart and pray them throughout the week concerned. In this way their own personal prayers are linked with the Church's Sunday liturgy. What ideas, themes and images are used in the Additional Collects? The Additional Collects incorporate metaphors, ideas and petitions drawn from Scripture on key theological themes and on the experience of being a Christian today. Each collect in a season reflects something of that season's themes and flavour: those for the Third and Fourth Sundays in Advent relate to the work of John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin Mary respectively; the Epiphany collects refer to the missionary work of the Gospel; the Lenten collects contain the themes of self-discipline and struggle against sin and evil, becoming more focused on the Cross from the Fifth Sunday onwards; the Easter collects recall the disciples' encounters with the risen Christ; the collects for Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday and Christ the King all refer to the life of the Holy Trinity. How do the Additional Collects 'fit in' with what is already available? The Additional Collects complement the original Common Worship Collects and Post Communions, approved by the General Synod in 1996. As Common Worship now provides two sets of collects, it is envisaged that on Sundays, the Principal Feasts that fall on Sundays, and Principal Holy Days, those conducting services will choose the most appropriate collect for the service and the congregation. The original collects stand firmly in the classical collect tradition, drawing heavily on the Book of Common Prayer and more recent Anglican sources, but also including new compositions. The Additional Collects seek to extend that tradition: these are simple and short prayers that are recognizably of the Anglican style of collect-writing, whilst using accessible and contemporary language. To make choosing the collect simple and convenient, the new book of Collects and Post Communions is being published at the same time as the Additional Collects booklet. This contains both the original Collects and Post Communions and the Additional Collects alongside one another, on the same page. It is a sturdy, long-lasting hardback, matching the Pastoral Services and Desk edition.