Collects...

Whilst in the Theology Library this afternoon, I was nosing through the rubrics of The Sarum Missal (an 1868 tome). It is entirely in English, which was disappointing, but it was interesting nevertheless. I turned to the section on Collects, and it said (I didn't in fact borrow it, so this is not verbatim): it is never lawful to have more than seven Collects, since Christ made no more than seven petitions in the Lord's Prayer. I had never hitherto thought of this, but it is certainly interesting to have established a link between Collects (the Latin is simply Oratio, or Prayer, and O'Connell, typically pedantic, seldom calls them Collects. I heard once that the word collect symbolises the ''gathering together'' of the prayers of the Faithful, and the Conclusion is addressed, as are all the ancestral Christian prayers, to the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Ghost) and the Lord's Prayer, said to be the most perfect. A nice way of summing up. I wonder how old the Collect is?

I told all this to an experienced MC this evening - who, not surprisingly, laughed and told me to get a life...