Commontide
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Original-language source · public domain
BCP 2019, p. 601
Preface of Christmas
Because you gave Jesus Christ, your only Son, to be born for us; who, by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary his mother, was made truly man, yet without the stain of sin, that we might be cleansed from sin and given the right to become your children.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This collect's roots reach back to a Latin oration composed sometime in the fifth or sixth century, expressing the ancient Christian teaching of the "wondrous exchange": God became human so that human beings might share in divine life. It did not reach the Anglican tradition until 1928, when a proposed revision of the Church of England's prayer book included it – but that revision was rejected by Parliament. The collect found its permanent Anglican home in the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer and has been carried forward into ACNA 2019.