COLLECT, in the liturgy of the church of England, and in the mass of the Catholic Church, denotes a prayer, accommodated to any particular day, occasion, or the like.
In general, all the prayers in each office are called collects; either because the priest speaks in the name of the whole assembly, whose sentiments and desires he sums up by the word oremus, "let us pray," as is observed by Pope Innocent III.; or because those prayers are offered when the people are assembled together, as is the opinion of Pamelius in his commentary on Tertullian.
The congregation itself, however, is in some ancient authors called collect. The popes Gelasius and Gregory are said to have been the first who established collects. Despence, a doctor of the faculty of Paris, wrote a treatise on collects, their origin, antiquity, authors, and the like.