Near the beginning of each service, we pray the “Prayer of the Day.” This prayer is different from others for a number of reasons. First, it is part of the lectionary—the three-year cycle of reaadings appointed for each Sunday. The prayers are deliberately written to reflect what we are about to hear in the readings—a little foretaste of the feast to come.
But, like so many other things in our worship, this particular prayer has an older name: The “Collect.” In English, we put emphasis on the second syllable, but the worship word has the emphasis on the first syllable: COL-lect. Even so, the word has the same meaning. The pastor would say, “Let us pray,” and then pause to allow everyone to offer their prayers to God silently—the needs we all have as we come to worship. Then, the pastor would pray the words of the Prayer of the Day aloud, “collecting” all the people’s prayers into one, and offering them to God together.
And what’s more: Since we share our lectionary with many other denominations, including Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, the United Church of Christ, some Baptists, and even in part, with Catholics, our lessons are the same each week as those used in those other churches. And so is the prayer! When we pray that Prayer of the Day, we are, in a sense, collecting all of our prayers, together with those of every other Christian on the planet, together into one.
Next time you are in worship, listening to the Prayer of the Day, pause and think about the power of that prayer, your prayer, your needs, your worship, lifted up in billions of voices together, resounding through the heavens to reach the ears of God. And know that we have a God who hears them, and acts.