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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 Seeking God

Teach me to seek you, and as I seek you, show yourself to me; for I cannot seek you unless you show me how, and I will never find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you by desiring you, and desire you by seeking you; let me find you by loving you, and love you in finding you.  Amen.

Doce me quaerere te et ostende te quaerenti; quia nec quaerere te possum, nisi tu doceas, nec invenire, nisi te ostendas. Quaeram te desiderando, desiderem quaerendo. Inveniam amando, amem inveniendo.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 672

Provenance

Anselm of Canterbury, c.1078

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A short, tender prayer asking God for the grace to seek him, drawn from the opening chapter of St. Anselm of Canterbury's Proslogion, written at Bec in the 1070s. The familiar English wording is Sr. Benedicta Ward's 1973 translation; it first appears in an Anglican prayer book in the ACNA's 2019 Book of Common Prayer, among the "Occasional Prayers."