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The Collect — also called the Opening Prayer — is the formal prayer that closes the Introductory Rites and prepares the assembly for the Liturgy of the Word. The priest invites the assembly to pray, allows a brief silence in which everyone offers their own intentions, and then "collects" all of these prayers into a single formal prayer addressed (almost always) to the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
Each Collect is proper to the day. The Roman Missal contains a Collect for every Sunday and weekday of the year, for every feast and saint's day, and for various pastoral occasions (weddings, funerals, votive Masses). Many of the Collects are very ancient, going back to the earliest sacramentaries of the Roman Church. They are usually brief, beautifully constructed, and theologically precise — small jewels of liturgical prose.
The Collect typically follows a recognizable pattern: an address to God ("Almighty ever-living God..."), a brief description of God's action or attribute, a petition that asks for some grace, and a doxological conclusion ("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"). The assembly responds "Amen" — and that single Amen is a deep act of consent, gathering everyone into the prayer the priest has offered on their behalf.