The Collect for the Solemnity of All Saints

Almighty ever-living God, by Whose gift we venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints, bestow on us, we pray, through the prayers of so many intercessors, an abundance of the reconciliation with You for which we earnestly long. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

by Whose gift – This Solemnity of All Saints is truly a gift from God. The saints themselves are a gift from God. He gives them to us for our comfort, help, and example, and He allows us to rejoice in and celebrate our relationship with them. Why, then, should we turn our backs on God's gifts?

venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints – Catholics never worship the saints. Rather, we venerate them. We recognize them as God's intimate friends and our role models and intercessors. We praise them for their love, and we acknowledge their merits. No, they did not earn their way to Heaven, but they did accept and cooperate with God's grace and are now enjoying their reward, eternal life with God.

through the prayers of so many intercessors – We pray for each other here on earth, gladly and often with great vigor. So why shouldn't the saints, whose love is much stronger than ours and who have a front row seat to God, pray for us? Indeed, we ask the saints for their prayers, imploring them to join their prayers to ours, for they see God face to face and love us more than ever.

an abundance of the reconciliation with You for which we earnestly long – We falter in our relationship with God every day. We sin. We fall short of His expectations. We need His mercy and forgiveness, an abundance of reconciliation with Him, every day. The saints pray for us that we may repent of our sins and turn back to God's grace. After all, they want us to be in Heaven with them for all eternity.

The Collect for the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and make us love what You command, so that we may merit what You promise. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

increase our faith, hope and charity – Faith, hope, and charity are the three theological virtues, which are “infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as His children and of meriting eternal life” (CCC #1813). God gives us the gift of faith that we may believe in Him and all He has revealed. Faith combines with hope, “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness” and trust Christ's promise that these great gifts will be ours through God's grace and our open cooperation (CCC #1817). Charity, self-giving love, allows us to “love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC #1822). With charity, we live out our faith and hope and immerse ourselves in God's infinite love for us.

make us love what You command – Do we love God's commands? Or do we see them as burdensome nuisances that get in the way of our freedom? Actually, God's commands are perfectly designed to give us true freedom. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and His commands fit our nature perfectly. God is never arbitrary. He never commands us to do something just because He says so. He always has a reason, and that reason is to draw us closer to Him. God's commands free us from sin so that we may be truly free to do good and to love God and to know Him better and better. This is why we should love His commands.

so that we may merit what You promise – We do not earn our way to Heaven! The Catholic Church never has, does not now, and never will teach that we earn eternal life. God gives it to us by His grace, which we accept in faith and live out in love. But as we believe, hope, and love, God allows us to merit, to deserve and be worthy of what He has promised and what He gives us. We don't even do this on our own, although we do cooperate, for God gives us the grace even to merit and to grow in His love.

The Collect for the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to Yours and serve Your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

grant that we may always conform our will to Yours – This is an easy prayer to pray and a difficult calling to live. God's will is perfect. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He sees infinitely farther in space and time then we do. We must be humble enough to recognize this and say “yes” to whatever God is doing or permitting in our lives, whether we understand it or not. As St. Paul says in Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” That said, though, we need God's grace to help us conform our will to His because we tend to rebel and complain and try to go our own way. This is why we pray as we do today, that our hearts open to grace and that grace moves our wills to join as one with His.

serve Your majesty – God created us to love and serve Him. Period. That is the whole purpose of our life, and it should be our highest joy. Yet it is so easy to get distracted by the things of this world. They tend to take priority over our service to God when they are actually given to us that we may use them to serve God.

in sincerity of heart – We humans are plagued by mixed motives. We love God and want to serve Him and please Him and conform ourselves to His will, but then we falter. We turn selfish. We want to be recognized and honored by others so that we feel better about ourselves. We fail to become transparent and allow God's light to shine through us. Rather, we block the light with our own desires and intentions. This is why we need to pray for sincerity of heart. Sincerity refers to a freedom from deceit and a truth in intention. We can never deceive God, but we must stop deceiving ourselves and allow God to purify our motives and our service with His grace and love.

The Collect for the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

May Your grace, O Lord, we pray, at all times go before us and follow after and make us always determined to carry out good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Your grace – God's grace is divine power in action in our lives. Sanctifying grace fills us with the divine presence. Actual grace guides and helps us along the path of God; it gives us the direction and strength we need to do God's will. Sacramental grace is poured out upon us in the sacraments, which communicate and strengthen sanctifying grace and provide actual graces according to the nature of the sacrament. We must, of course, be properly disposed to receive grace, and we must cooperate with God's grace.

go before us – We can do nothing without God's grace. His grace saves us from sin and death. His grace gives us the ability to believe, to hope, to love, and to accept the salvation He offers. His grace gives us the ability to pray, to do good works, and to respond to God according to His will. Yet we must always cooperate with God's grace, and our free will comes into play here, for we are free to reject God's grace as well as accept and embrace it.

follow after – Aren't we lucky that God's grace also follows after us? We make horrible messes of our lives sometimes. We sin. We fall. We turn our backs on God. But God's grace still pursues us, poking our consciences, nudging us back toward Him. When we do turn back to God and repent and confess our sins, He is right there waiting for us, filling us with His forgiveness and His grace.

make us always determined to carry out good works – We human beings tend to want to be independent, to do things on our own. But when we rely on our own strength and our own shaky motives, we often fail to do good to others. In fact, we tend to do more harm than good. That's why we need to ask God to guide us, first to give us the desire and determination to do good things out of love and second to give us the ability to accomplish them and then to attribute them all to His glory.

The Collect for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Almighty ever-living God, Who in the abundance of Your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat You, pour out Your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty ever-living God – Sometimes it's good to stop for a while and reflect on God's greatness. We get so caught up in asking Him for what we need and want that we don't take time to simply praise Him for how wonderful He is. We can never wrap our minds around God's almighty, eternal power, but we can worship Him for it.

the abundance of Your kindness – These days we hear plenty about an “abundance of caution,” but what we really need to focus our attention on is God's abundance of kindness. In the Old Testament a word often translated as “kindness” is the Hebrew hesed, which refers to God's covenant faithfulness and love. God has made a series of covenants (family bonds created by swearing an oath) with His people down through the centuries, and now He has sworn the ultimate covenant through Jesus Christ, pouring out upon us the bounty of His love and care.

surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat You – God gives us far more than we deserve or desire. We actually do not deserve anything but God's contempt. After all, we sin all the time. We flaunt His will and His word to follow our own “miserable interests” (a phrase used by Our Lady at Medjugorje). Yet God doesn't give us what we deserve; He gives us His grace and His love instead. What's more, our desires often fall far short of our needs, and God in His wisdom gives us what we need but not always what we desire. We have trouble figuring out what is truly good for us. God always knows that, and He provides accordingly. That's why He says “no” to our prayers sometimes, for His plan is to give us far more than our meager, often disordered desires.

pour out Your mercy upon us – We all sin, and we all need God's mercy in abundance. Let us take a moment to enter into the silence of our hearts, bring before God all that we have on our consciences, and beg Him for His mercy.

to pardon what conscience dreads – If our consciences are properly trained, we know when we have done wrong. Our consciences will be appalled by our sins, and we will turn to God for forgiveness.

to give what prayer does not dare to ask – Is there anything we do not dare to ask of God? Is there anything we dare not bring before Him in prayer? There shouldn't be because if there is, we shouldn't be asking for it or thinking about it. That said, though, we know that God always gives us far more than we ask for, for He knows our needs far better than we do.