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

Prayer and the Laying on of Hands

Confirmation — said by the Bishop before the laying on of hands

Almighty and everliving God, we beseech you to strengthen these your servants for witness and ministry through the power of your Holy Spirit. Daily increase in them your manifold virtues of grace: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness, and the spirit of holy fear, now and for ever. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Confirmation

Provenance

Gallican/Sarum, c.8th–16th c.

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This confirmation prayer is built around Isaiah 11:2-3, the messianic prophecy listing seven gifts of the Spirit. In some form it has accompanied the laying on of hands since at least the eighth century, when a closely parallel text appears in a Gallican liturgical book; Thomas Cranmer gave it its familiar English shape in 1549.