Commontide

Preparation for Personal Prayer

Holy Spirit, breath of God and fire of love, I cannot pray without your aid: Kindle in me the fire of your love, and illumine me with your light; that with a steadfast will and holy thoughts I may approach the Father in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who reigns with you and the Father in eternal union. Amen.

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Commontide
Collect
Prayers

A Collect for Guidance

Thursday — Morning Prayer

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Provenance

Attrib. c.440, att. Fox 1913

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A morning collect drawing on Paul's words to the Athenians in Acts 17, asking that the Spirit keep us aware of God's presence through the day's ordinary work. Its earliest prayer-book appearance is the Canadian Family Prayers, though a 1913 devotional anthology attributed it to "an ancient collect, A.D. 440" – a claim no surviving manuscript source confirms.