Commontide

For the Acceptance of Prayer

Heavenly Father, you have promised to hear what we ask in the Name of your Son: Accept and fulfill our petitions, we pray, not as we ask in our ignorance, nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Commontide
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Prayers

Ascension

Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven: May our hearts and minds also there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Concéde, quáesumus, omnípotens Deus: ut, qui hodiérna die Unigénitum tuum, Redemptórem nostrum, ad cœlos ascendísse crédimus; ipsi quoque mente in cœléstibus habitémus.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 613

Proper Preface

Preface of the Ascension

Through your dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who after his most glorious resurrection appeared to his Apostles, and in their sight ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us; that where he is, there we might also ascend, and reign with him in glory.

Provenance

Gelasian/Gregorian, c. 600

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This prayer has been said on Ascension Day since at least the sixth or seventh century, when it took shape in the Roman liturgical tradition transmitted in the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries. Cranmer translated it for the first English prayer book in 1549, adding "heart" alongside "mind" to deepen its petition, and it has traveled through every English prayer book since.