She was a founding member of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL), an ecumenical and inter-religious association of liturgical scholars who collaborate in research concerning public worship, and went on to serve as president of both NAAL and the North American Liturgical Conference.
She graduated from Mount St. Scholastica College and entered the Benedictine order in Atchinson, Kansas in 1957.
[1] Collins taught high school before entering Catholic University of America (CUA) where she earned a doctoral degree in sacramental and liturgical studies.
[1][2] In the mid-1970s, she was a founding member of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL),[3] an ecumenical and inter-religious association of liturgical scholars who collaborate in research concerning public worship.
"[8] In 1983, she joined Mary E. Hunt, Diann Neu, and others to found the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER), a nonprofit organization that describes itself as "committed to theological, ethical, and ritual development by and for women.
"[9][10] On June 13, 1999, Sr. Mary Collins was elected the tenth prioress of the Mount St. Scholastica monastery in Atchison, Kansas and left CUA.
[11] She also served the Federation of St. Scholastica for twelve years as first councilor and consulted on or wrote many of their documents.
[14] Collins was invited to give the 1987 Madeleva Lecture, the third in a series that continues to be hosted by the Center for Spirituality, Saint Mary's College, in Notre Dame, Indiana.
[16] Collins received the Michael Mathis Award from the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy in 1995.
[11] "A liturgy of invocation" in Women and Catholic Priesthood : An Expanded Vision : Proceedings of the Detroit Ordination Conference.
ISBN 0918208173 “Critical Questions for Liturgical Theology,” in Worship 53, 1979, 302–17 (Described by Bruce T. Morrill, S.J.
in a 2012 Catholic Theological Society of America presentation as "a tour de force both in content and methodology.
ISBN 9780894536090 "Participation: liturgical renewal and the cultural question" in The Future of the Catholic Church in America: Major Papers of the Virgil Michel Symposium.
ISBN-13: 978–0809135196 "Mystagogy: Discerning the Mystery of Faith" p. 73-104 in A Commentary on the Order of Mass of The Roman Missal: A New English Translation.
ISBN 9780814662472, 6247 Mary Collins, OSB, "The Church and the Eucharist," Catholic Theological Society of America Proceedings 52 (1997): 19–34, especially 30–34.
“Performing the Rite of Marriage: Agency, Identity, and Ideology.” Proceedings of the North American Academy of Liturgy, August, 93–105.
"Ritualizing Endings for the Sake of New Beginnings" Chapter 5 in A Not-so-Unexciting Life : Essays on Benedictine History and Spirituality in Honor of Michael Casey, OCSO.