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
Blessing
Prayers

Ash Wednesday — Imposition of Ashes

Almighty God, you have created us from the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be for us a symbol of our mortality and a sign of our penitence, that we may remember that it is by your grace alone that we receive the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Ash WednesdayLent & Holy Week

Provenance

US BCP, 1979

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This short prayer accompanies the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday. It's a modern prayer, first appearing in an official Anglican prayer book only in 1979, after nearly 430 years in which English and American Prayer Books had no ash ceremony at all: Archbishop Thomas Cranmer removed the medieval blessing and imposition of ashes when he wrote the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549.