Commontide
Merciful God, you desire not the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn to you and live; and through your only Son you have revealed yourself as the God who pardons iniquity. Have mercy on the unrepentant and those who do not believe . Awaken in them, by your Word and Holy Spirit, a deep sense of their sinfulness and peril. Take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of your Word. Grant them to know and feel that there is no other Name under heaven given among men by which they must be saved, but only the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so bring them home and number them among your children, that they may be yours for ever; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
BCP 2019, p. 665
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This prayer for the unrepentant and for unbelievers is recent only in name. First printed in the Anglican Church in North America's 2013 trial book Texts for Common Prayer and carried into its 2019 prayer book, its words are a close modernization of the ancient Third Collect for Good Friday, keeping Cranmer's plea to "take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of your Word" almost unchanged and softening his "fetch them home" into "bring them home," while broadening the old prayer's named groups into an intercession for all who do not yet believe.