Rector’s Reflections
Tuesday 18th March 2025
A Handy Little Prayer: the Collect for 2nd Sunday of Lent
The Sunday Collects are full of spiritual riches, and I thought I would write a short series of reflections based on the Collect for 2nd Sunday of Lent, as it is found in the Book of Common Prayer. It has struck me that this Collect can be used in many different situations, and it deserves to be better known. It is such a handy little prayer.
Before I give the text of this Collect, some words by way of introduction.
To start with, a couple of general comments about Collects. Collects are simply authorised prayers that are used in acts of public worship in order to set the theme and tone for the service as a whole. In a service of Holy Communion, the Collect is traditionally placed immediately before the readings from the Bible; in a service of Morning or Evening Prayer, it typically goes at the end of the service. There is nothing to stop more than one Collect being used in a service, and some services have a combination of a Collect which varies according to the liturgical season, and one of more Collects which remain the same throughout the year.
You may be wondering: so when did Christians start to use Collects in worship? The answer is that the practice dates back to at least the 5th Century. Some of the Collects in use today date back to this time, but many are much more recent, even if they are sometimes based on older originals. Several of the Collects in general use in the Church of England were specially composed in the 16th and 17th centuries, or over the last 40 years or so. The current suite of liturgical resources known as “Common Worship” is garlanded with Collects in profusion– there is one for almost every conceivable occasion.
You may also be wondering about their use in prayer. Broadly speaking, Christian prayer is divided into two different types: public prayer, usually in the form of public worship, and private prayer. Both types of prayer are important, and this is one of the reasons why Christians need to go to Church. When we go to Church and worship with others, we are taking part in public prayer. Such public prayer supplements our private prayer. As Christians, we need both private and public prayer. Depriving ourselves of public prayer is the spiritual equivalent of trying to walk on one leg: it can be done, but we will find it so much easier if we use both our legs. We shall also find that we shall be able to travel so much further on our spiritual journey.
But although there is this broad distinction between public prayer and private prayer, they are actually inter-related. In an ideal world, we prepare ourselves for public prayer by a time of private prayer, perhaps in the form of a time of quiet reflection. Again, in an ideal world, we pray as we take part in the service itself, and again, in an ideal world, the service will provide us with the space and opportunity to do so. Music can help us to do this: perhaps we find ourselves being carried away in prayer while we are singing a hymn, or are listening to music sung by the choir. And again, in an ideal world, our time of worshipping together should inform and enrich our times of private prayer in the days ahead.
Although the perfect inter-twining of public and private prayer is something which is found only in an ideal world, there is nothing to stop us from trying to get better at making the connection between our public prayer and our private prayer. One way we can do this is by taking time to look at the prayers used in public worship, for example the Collects, and to use some of these same prayers in our own private devotions. Some people like to learn particular prayers by heart, so that they are always to hand when needed. Some years ago, when I was volunteering as part of the Chaplaincy team at the JR Hospital, I remember being told about an elderly patient who could remember Collects from the Book of Common Prayer, which they had learnt by heart when being prepared for Confirmation many years ago. It was a source of comfort for them to be able to reconnect with the words of these prayers in their later life.
So in the days ahead, I shall share some reflections based on the words of the Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent, in the version of the Collect found in the Book of Common Prayer. I hope that the words of this public prayer will enrich our private prayers, and in turn, that the deepening of our private prayers will enrich our experience of public worship together.