Collect

The collect /ˈkɒlɛkt/ is a short general prayer of a particular structure used in Christian liturgy.

Collects appear in the liturgies of Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, among others, but are unknown in those of eastern Christianity.

Origin of the term

The word comes from Latin collecta, the term used in Rome in the 5th century and the 10th, although in the Tridentine version of the Roman Missal the more generic term oratio (prayer) was used instead.

The Latin word collecta meant the gathering of the people together and may have been applied to this prayer as said before the procession to the church in which Mass was celebrated. It may also have been used to mean a prayer that collected into one the prayers of the individual members of the congregation.

Structure

A collect generally has five parts:

Prayer

Prayer (from the Latin precari "to ask earnestly, beg, entreat") is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication.

Prayer can be a form of religious practice, may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words, song or complete silence. When language is used, prayer may take the form of a hymn, incantation, formal creedal statement, or a spontaneous utterance in the praying person. There are different forms of prayer such as petitionary prayer, prayers of supplication, thanksgiving, and praise. Prayer may be directed towards a deity, spirit, deceased person, or lofty idea, for the purpose of worshipping, requesting guidance, requesting assistance, confessing transgressions (sins) or to express one's thoughts and emotions. Thus, people pray for many reasons such as personal benefit, asking for divine grace, spiritual connection, or for the sake of others.

Some anthropologists believe that the earliest intelligent modern humans practiced a form of prayer. Today, most major religions involve prayer in one way or another; some ritualize the act of prayer, requiring a strict sequence of actions or placing a restriction on who is permitted to pray, while others teach that prayer may be practiced spontaneously by anyone at any time.

I Am

I Am may refer to:

Music

Albums

Songs

Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon (Korean 문선명 Mun Seon-myeong; born Mun Yong-myeong; 25 February 1920 – 3 September 2012) was a Korean religious leader, businessperson, political activist, and media mogul. A messiah claimant, he was the founder of the Unification Church (members of which have sometimes been called "Moonies" and called him their True Father), and of its widely noted "Blessing" or mass wedding ceremony, and the author of its unique theology the Divine Principle. He was an ardent anti-communist and advocate for Korean reunification, for which he was recognized by the governments of both South and North Korea. His business interests included News World Communications, an international news media corporation known for its American subsidiary The Washington Times, and Tongil Group, a South Korean business group (chaebol), as well as various affiliated organizations.

Moon was born in what is now North Korea. When he was a child, his family converted to Christianity. In 1947 he was convicted by the North Korean government of spying for South Korea and given a five-year sentence to the Hŭngnam labor camp. In 1954, he founded the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea based on conservative, family-oriented teachings from new interpretations of the Bible. In 1971, he moved to the United States and became well-known after giving a series of public speeches on his beliefs. In the 1982 case United States v. Sun Myung Moon he was charged by the United States government with willfully filing false federal income tax returns, found guilty in a jury trial, and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. His case generated protests from clergy and civil libertarians.

Unification Church

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, founded as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, and commonly called the Unification Church or Unificationism, is a new religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon. Since its founding, the church has expanded throughout the world with most members living in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and other nations in East Asia. It has sponsored other organizations and projects over the years; including businesses, news media, projects in education and the arts, and political and social activism. The church was led by Moon until his death on September 3, 2012. Since then, his widow Hak Ja Han has assumed the leadership of the church.

Unificationist beliefs are derived from the Christian Bible and are explained in the church's textbook, the Divine Principle. It teaches that God is the Creator and Heavenly Parent, whose dual nature combines both masculinity and femininity and whose center is true love. The Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church, a wedding or wedding vow renewal ceremony, is a church tradition which has attracted wide public attention. The church has engaged in interfaith activities with other religions, including mainstream Christianity and Islam, despite theological differences.