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.

Touch screen to pause

Skip to main content
Commontide
Prayer
Death & the Departed

The Burial of the Dead — The Committal

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We praise and magnify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course and kept the faith; and committing our brother N. to your gracious keeping, we pray that, together with him and with all those who are departed in the true faith of your holy Name, we may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in your eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Found in the Prayer Book

  • Burial Of The DeadThe Burial of the Dead

Provenance

Cranmer 1549

Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.

A burial prayer accompanying the Anglican faithful to the grave since 1549, this collect places the committal not in grief but in praise: God is the living host of the faithful departed, and the prayer is first an act of worship before it is a petition. Thomas Cranmer composed it for the first Book of Common Prayer; the 1662 revision softened its original Calvinist edge, and the 2019 text introduces language drawn almost verbatim from 2 Timothy 4:7.