Q. 1. What is the Collect? Someone said it is a part of the Mass.

A. 1. Each Mass usually has the Introit, the Collect, the Epistle, the Gradual and the Alleluia or Tract, the Gospel, the Offertory, the Secret, the Communion, and the Post-Communion. The passages or prayers that correspond with each of these titles are commonly printed in full.

The word "Collect" consist a short prayers that are said before the Epistle in the Mass. The "Collect" occurs again at Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers. The word collecta corresponds to the Greek synaxis. It is a noun, a late form for collectio (so missa for missio, oblata for oblatio, ascensa, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, for ascensio, etc.).

The original meaning seems to have been this: it was used for the service held at a certain Church on the days when there was a main Church somewhere else. The people gathered together and became a "collection" at the smaller Church; after certain prayers had been said they went in procession to the main-Church.