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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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Prayers

The Prayer of Humble Access

The Holy Eucharist — Celebrant and People together may say

We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table; but you are the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Ad mensam dulcíssimi convívii tui, pie Dómine Iesu Christe, ego peccátor de própriis meis méritis nihil præsúmens, sed de tua confídens misericórdia et bonitáte, accédere véreor et contremísco.

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Original-language source · public domain

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Holy Eucharist Anglican Standard TextThe Holy Eucharist

Provenance

Cranmer 1548

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

Thomas Cranmer composed this prayer for the 1548 Order of Communion, drawing on a medieval devotion of the Ambrosian tradition, the Liturgy of St. Basil, the image of the Canaanite woman asking for crumbs (Mark 7), and Aquinas's teaching that Christ's body and blood nourish both body and soul. It has appeared in every English Prayer Book since 1548; ACNA 2019 restores the full historic text after a 1979 American revision dropped the body-and-soul clause.