Commontide

For the Acceptance of Prayer

O Lord our God, accept the fervent prayers of your people; in the multitude of your mercies, look with compassion upon us and all who turn to you for help; for you are gracious, O lover of souls, and to you we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

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Commontide
Prayer
Ministry & Ordination

Anointing of the Hands

The Ordination of a Priest — the Bishop anoints the hands of the new Priest with the Oil of Chrism

Grant, O Lord, to consecrate and sanctify these hands by this unction and by our blessing, that whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate may be consecrated and sanctified, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Ordination Of A PriestOrdination & Institution

Provenance

Romano-Germanic, c.950

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

This prayer is said by the bishop while anointing a new priest's palms with oil at ordination. It is genuinely old, going back roughly a thousand years to a Latin formula used across medieval Western Christendom, but it is new to Anglican prayer books: the Reformation-era English ordinals cut it out entirely, and it returned only in 2019, as an optional ceremony in the ACNA prayer book.