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
Prayer
Prayers

The Burial of the Dead — The Committal

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We praise and magnify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course and kept the faith; and committing our brother N. to your gracious keeping, we pray that, together with him and with all those who are departed in the true faith of your holy Name, we may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in your eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Burial Of The DeadThe Burial of the Dead

Provenance

Cranmer 1549

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A burial prayer accompanying the Anglican faithful to the grave since 1549, this collect places the committal not in grief but in praise: God is the living host of the faithful departed, and the prayer is first an act of worship before it is a petition. Thomas Cranmer composed it for the first Book of Common Prayer; the 1662 revision softened its original Calvinist edge, and the 2019 text introduces language drawn almost verbatim from 2 Timothy 4:7.