Commontide
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Original-language source · public domain
BCP 2019, p. 606
Preface of Lent
You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This prayer has traveled thirteen centuries and two continents to reach the current prayer book. An anonymous Latin oration in an early-medieval Roman service book, it asked God to unify the wills of the faithful with his own; Cranmer rendered it into English in 1549, and seventeenth-century revisers sharpened its diagnosis of human disorder into the classic phrase "unruly wills and affections."