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

Monday of Holy Week

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

BCP 2019, p. 607

Proper Preface

Preface of Holy Week

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. For our sins he was lifted high upon the Cross, that he might draw the whole world to himself; and by his suffering and death he became the author of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.

Provenance

Huntington, c. 1882

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

William Reed Huntington, the American Episcopal priest who reshaped the Prayer Book in 1892, composed this collect around 1882, building on a sentence Cranmer wrote for the Visitation of the Sick in 1549. Its central paradox – that the way of the Cross and the way of life and peace are the same road – took forty-six years to reach an authorized prayer book, finally appearing in the US BCP 1928.