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
Collect
Prayers

The Great Vigil of Easter — Israel's Deliverance at the Red Sea

O God, whose wonderful deeds of old shine forth even to our own day, by the power of your mighty arm you once delivered your chosen people from slavery under Pharaoh, to be a sign for us of the salvation offered to all nations by the water of Baptism: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may be numbered among the offspring of Abraham, and rejoice in the inheritance of Israel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Deus, cuius antiqua miracula etiam nostris saeculis coruscare sentimus: dum quod uni populo, a persecutione Aegyptiaca liberando, dexterae tuae potentia contulisti, id in salutem gentium per aquam regenerationis operaris: praesta; ut in Abrahae filios, et in Israeliticam dignitatem, totius mundi transeat plenitudo. Per Dominum.

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Original-language source · public domain

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Great Vigil Of EasterLent & Holy Week

Provenance

Roman Rite, c.7th-8th c.

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This prayer follows the Easter Vigil's reading of the Red Sea crossing and makes explicit what the church has long seen there: the rescue of Israel from Pharaoh's army as a preview of what baptism does for every nation. Its English text comes from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, but it closely renders a Latin prayer that has stood in this same spot in the Roman Vigil since the early Middle Ages, or possibly earlier.