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
Blessing
Prayers

Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child

May God the Father, who through Baptism has adopted you as his children, grant you his grace. Amen. May God the Son, who sanctified a home at Nazareth, fill you with his love. Amen. May God the Holy Spirit, who makes the Church one family, keep you in his peace. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Thanksgiving Birth AdoptionThanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child

Provenance

Episcopal 1979 / ACNA 2019

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A modern Anglican composition, prepared for the Episcopal Church in the early 1970s when the old "Churching of Women" rite was replaced by a new service welcoming the whole family after a birth or adoption. It circulated in the Episcopal trial-use books before its first confirmed printing in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer; the ACNA prayerbook of 2019 lightly revised the wording to make the blessing a more direct address to the family present.