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

Thursday of Easter Week

Almighty God, you show those in error the light of your truth so that they may turn to the path of righteousness: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Deus, qui errantibus, ut in viam possint redire justitiae, veritatis tuae lumen ostendis: da cunctis qui Christiana professione censentur, et illa respuere, quae huic inimica sunt nomini; et ea quae sunt apta, sectari.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 611

Proper Preface

Preface of Easter

But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.

Provenance

Gelasian/Gregorian, c.600–750

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A prayer with a pedigree stretching to the oldest surviving Roman liturgical book, this collect was standard Easter-season fare across the medieval West. Thomas Cranmer turned it into English in 1549, and a Victorian scholar's fresh translation of the same ancient Latin shaped the form Anglicans pray today.