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

Wednesday of Holy Week

Assist us mercifully with your grace, Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts by which you have promised us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

ASSIST us mercifully with thy help, O Lord God of our salvation; that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts, whereby thou hast given unto us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Original-language source · public domain

BCP 2019, p. 608

Proper Preface

Preface of Holy Week

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. For our sins he was lifted high upon the Cross, that he might draw the whole world to himself; and by his suffering and death he became the author of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.

Provenance

US Episcopal BCP 1928

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

An ancient collect, drawn from the super populum blessing for Monday in Holy Week in the Gregorian Sacramentary and the Sarum Missal, first appointed as the proper collect for Wednesday of Holy Week in the 1928 US Episcopal Prayer Book. The prayer asks for the grace and joy to enter into the great events of Holy Week, those "mighty acts" by which God has given us "life and immortality," a phrase that echoes 2 Timothy 1:10. Dropped in 1979, it was restored in the ACNA 2019 Book of Common Prayer.