Commontide
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.
BCP 2019, p. 639
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.