The Book of Common Prayer
Posts in Comfortable Words credited to ‘The Book of Common Prayer’
This short prayer appeared in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, as a preparation for holy communion.
Much of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 was an elegant translation of the old Sarum Use of the mediaeval English church. This prayer, appointed for the Communion Service between the Comfortable Words and the distribution of the bread and wine, was one of the new ones. It blends passages from Mark 7:28 and John 6:56 with a traditional Roman collect and the Greek Liturgy of Saint Basil. Its name comes from the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637.
The final prayer of the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer.
This Collect was appointed as the closing prayer of the Litany in the English Book of Common Prayer of 1549. In later editions, it was added to Morning and Evening Prayer, and it was also attributed to St John Chrysostom (347-407), as it comes originally from the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, the holy communion service of the Eastern churches.
A short prayer from the opening of the communion service in the old Sarum missal.
This short prayer came near the start of the Sarum missal, the predominant Mediaeval communion service in England, just after a hymn to the Holy Ghost. It survived the cutting table of the Reformation and opened the communion service of the 1549 Prayer Book too, in an English translation of surpassing elegance and restraint.