Commontide

For Guidance

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices; that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path we may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Commontide
Collect
Prayers

Ash Wednesday

O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart: that desiring you, we may seek you; and that seeking you, we may find you; and that finding you, we may love you; and that loving you, we may hate those sins from which you have delivered us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Ash WednesdayLent & Holy Week

Provenance

Anselm (attrib.); ACNA 2019

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A short, climbing prayer: desire leads to seeking, seeking to finding, finding to loving, and loving to hating the sins we've been freed from. Anglican devotion has long carried it under the name of St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109); it entered an actual prayer book for the first time in the ACNA's 2019 Book of Common Prayer, as the concluding collect of Ash Wednesday.