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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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Prayer
Prayers

A Prayer of St. John Chrysostom

Morning & Evening Prayer

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time, with one accord to make our common supplications to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will grant their requests: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

Ὁ τὰς κοινὰς ταύτας καὶ συμφώνους ἡμῖν χαρισάμενος προσευχάς, ὁ καὶ δυσὶ καὶ τρισὶ συμφωνοῦσιν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί σου τὰς αἰτήσεις παρέχειν ἐπαγγειλάμενος· αὐτὸς καὶ νῦν τῶν δούλων σου τὰ αἰτήματα πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον πλήρωσον χορηγῶν ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ παρόντι αἰῶνι τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν τῆς σῆς ἀληθείας καὶ ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι ζωὴν αἰώνιον χαριζόμενος.

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Original-language source · public domain

Provenance

Byzantine euchologion, 12th c. (Cranmer 1544)

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

One of the oldest prayers in the Anglican Office, this collect comes from the Byzantine Divine Liturgy named for St. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople – though the prayer itself appears only in the later medieval manuscripts of that liturgy, not its earliest layers. Archbishop Cranmer translated it in 1544 for the first authorized vernacular liturgy in England, five years before the first Prayer Book.