Collation
Collation [1]
is
(1) the free assignment of a vacant canonry or benefice;
(2) reading of devout books from the pulpit by the reader of the week, followed by an exposition from the superior in chapter;
(3) a sermon after a funeral;
(4) a lecture on the catechism established in 1622;
(5) the monastic supper.
During the first four centuries there was but one full, meal taken daily by monastics, and that was supper (coena). When the mid-day meal was adopted, a slender repast of bread, wine, and dry fruit, not worthy of the name of supper, was taken after vespers, during the reading, or "collation," of the Scripture or fathers and so the name was given to then meal, and adopted by laymen arid priests. The jentaculum, or breakfast, consisted of a basin of soup.
