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

Week Starting August 21-27

Proper 16

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Ecclesiam tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata mundet et muniat: et quia sine te non potest salva consistere; tuo semper munere gubernetur.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 619

Provenance

Gelasian, c.750

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

An early medieval Latin prayer from the Gelasian tradition, carried unchanged through the Sarum rite into the first English prayer book in 1549. Its compressed claim, that the Church cannot stand without divine help, is the whole theology of the prayer.