O God, by your grace your servant N., kindled by the flame of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church, turning pride into humility and error into truth: Grant that we may be set aflame with the same spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Preface of a Reformer of the Church
For you, the master builder, never abandon your Church, which you have built of living stones; you call your faithful servants to restore its ancient walls and reunite its broken ramparts, that it may be a holy temple of your presence.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
A modern Anglican template prayer for commemorations of church reformers, whose central image of a saint "kindled by the flame" of divine love and becoming "a burning and shining light" traces through Bernard of Clairvaux's twelfth-century sermons all the way back to John 5:35. The Episcopal Church embedded that Bernardine language in a feast collect, the BCP 1979 generalized it for monastics, and the ACNA 2019 applied it to reformers with a new tailoring clause about turning pride to humility and error to truth.