The Collect and Church Missals

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Is the collect deemphasized compared with other parts of The Mass? I ask because in the various missals I’ve seen used by different parishes it never appears with the Sunday readings. Even antiphons appear but no collect. Some church missals will have a separate section for them, while others don’t have them listed at all. Perhaps the neglected middle, positioned at the end of the introductory rites and before the liturgy of the Word?
 
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There are a couple of publishers who print the disposable missalettes that one sees in US parishes. One of them contains the Collect, the other ones do not. The others have features that many parishes find more desirable and consider not having the Collect is a reasonable trade off. (Each new pastor seems I have to switch to the other missalette company, back and forth, every couple of years!)
 
Zach said:
Is the collect deemphasized compared with other parts of The Mass? I ask because in the various missals I’ve seen used by different parishes it never appears with the Sunday readings.
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It annoys the heck out of me too. Fortunately if you’re in the USA you can find the collect for every day on Catholic Culture website in the Liturgical Year section.

I am aware of exactly one church out of like 50 I’ve been to in the last three years that has the version of the Missalette with collects in it.

At this point in my life I rarely bother to follow the Mass in the paper missals. If I have to recite an Antiphon, I just follow what everybody else is saying; if you have a basic familiarity with Scripture, it’s not that hard.
 
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I’ve been getting the Word among us booklet which some parishes have sitting out at the beginning of each month for parishioners to take. It has all the readings, antiphons, collect, and prayers for each day of each month, Sunday and daily.
 
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Canada’s “Living With Christ” missalette and annual Missal both contain the Collects. So does my St. Joseph permanent Missal for Canada.
 
Our parish uses Today’s Missal from OCP. It has the Sunday collects but not weekdays. I have seen a different OCP edition that has daily collects as well.
 
Zach said:
Is the collect deemphasized compared with other parts of The Mass? I ask because in the various missals I’ve seen used by different parishes it never appears with the Sunday readings. Even antiphons appear but no collect. Some church missals will have a separate section for them, while others don’t have them listed at all. Perhaps the neglected middle, positioned at the end of the introductory rites and before the liturgy of the Word?
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I can understand that the antiphons would be there even if the Collect isn’t. The antiphons are to be used if there is no singing and usually the assembly would recite them, therefore would need to have them available. The Collect belongs to the priest so the assembly doesn’t need to have it, although I personally like to follow along.
 
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Depends on the missal.

Our old missalettes has the Collect and our new one doesn’t. I liked having it in the missalettes but we changed for some good reasons so… I can live without it. The priest reads it.
 
Glennon_P said:
Our parish uses Today’s Missal from OCP. It has the Sunday collects but not weekdays. I have seen a different OCP edition that has daily collects as well.
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Do you mean collects for weekdays during advent, Christmas, Easter and lent? During ordinary time there aren’t any specific collects for regular weekdays. Most priest I know use the collect and prayers for the preceeding Sunday, though the rubrics allow any of the 34 masses for ordinary time to be used.

That of course assumes that Father doesn’t throw a curveball and offer a votive mass, mass for the dead, or one for various occasions. The only way I know half the time is based on where he has the Missal opened to (plus I’m generally reading over his shoulder 😉)
 
Usige said:
Do you mean collects for weekdays during advent, Christmas, Easter and lent? During ordinary time there aren’t any specific collects for regular weekdays. Most priest I know use the collect and prayers for the preceeding Sunday, though the rubrics allow any of the 34 masses for ordinary time to be used.
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There are many saint’s day collects, and if you have a priest who likes to say all the Optional Memorials of saints as well as the Memorials, then you are often hearing a saint’s day collect at Mass rather than the ordinary time collect, which as you mentioned is usually the same one as the preceding Sunday.
 
Usige said:
Our parish uses Today’s Missal from OCP. It has the Sunday collects but not weekdays. I have seen a different OCP edition that has daily collects as well.
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Hmmmm…now you have me wondering. Maybe it has the readings for weekdays and not the collects. I visited the parish in question on the first Sunday in Advent so it’s been about a month. I’ll stop by and check and report back.

I do remember in the early 80s, my college parish used the Pray Together missalette and it had the collects listed for daily Mass. That’s when I first noticed, “Hey! This is the same prayer as yesterday…and the same as tomorrow…and the same as last Sunday…” (Ordinary time). At one point they stopped printing the collects; I’m guessing it was to save paper and printing costs.
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Glennon_P said:
Our parish uses Today’s Missal from OCP. It has the Sunday collects but not weekdays. I have seen a different OCP edition that has daily collects as well.
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I checked today. The missalette is OCP’s Today’s Missal. It includes both the Collects and Readings for weekday Masses. In Ordinary Time, it repeats the Collect from the previous Sunday:

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There must be two editions of Today’s Missal. In parishes where I’ve attended and/or worked that used it, only Sunday readings and collects were included with citations for weekdays, but you had to look them up yourself elsewhere.

Edit: Just looked at the OCP site; indeed there are three versions available - with daily’s, without, and Spanish.
 
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I think the reasons why some of the pew missals don’t have collects is because it’s a trade off to save on “real estate.”
  1. Many priests prefer a light weight pew missal because of the elderly people & children (I know my local parish priest said this to me - that’s why he purchases the thiner missal from OCP)
  2. most pew missals are primarily hymnals & published by companies who own or lease rights to modern liturgical music. So they prioritizes music over liturgical options and changeable parts. Adding the readings is more of a courtesy for parish and less of their primary goal.
  3. Sure they have the intro and communion antiphon, but many don’t have the collect, preface options, post communion prayer, etc
  4. finally, because priests often have a ton of options, esp when it come to the preface, it’s just easier to avoid publishing the longer prayers that change from week to week.
 
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I think most pew missals do have the collects and the other presidential prayers for the Sunday Mass. What they usually omit are these prayers for the weekday Masses.

What I would recommend for anyone who regularly attends weekday Masses is to purchase their own missal that they can bring with them to any weekday Mass they attend.

I use the two-volume set of the St. Joseph Weekday Missal from Catholic Book Publishing. I find it easy to read and very comprehensive. Not only does it include all the presidential prayers but it also includes the a large number of the prefaces and all ten Eucharistic prayers and a good selection of the votive Masses a priest might celebrate. Highly recommended.
 
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