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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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Prayer
Prayers

For Mercy

Almighty God, you have not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; grant that we, who for our evil deeds deserve to be punished, by the might of your grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Concede quesumus, omnipotens deus: vt qui ex merito nostre actionis affligimur: tue gratie consolatione respiremus. Per do.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 669

Provenance

ACNA 2019 splice

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This prayer takes a line from Psalm 103 (God does not deal with us as our sins deserve) and joins it to one of the oldest prayers still said in English: the historic collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, which goes back through Cranmer's prayer book to a Latin prayer said in Rome well over a thousand years ago.