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 September 4-10

Proper 18

O Lord God, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Da, quaesumus, Domine, populo tuo diabolica vitare contagia: et te solum Deum pura mente sectari.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 619

Provenance

Gelasian-family, c.790; BCP 1549

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

An ancient prayer in use for well over a thousand years, confronting the three classic enemies of the Christian life: the pressures of the world, bodily desire, and the devil himself. Cranmer brought it into the first English prayer book in 1549 with that tripartite shape already intact; the 1662 revisers sharpened it by changing a single word, asking God's people not merely to "avoid" temptation but to "withstand" it.