Commontide
Almighty God, you have created us from the dust of the earth: Grant that these ashes may be for us a symbol of our mortality and a sign of our penitence, that we may remember that it is by your grace alone that we receive the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This short prayer accompanies the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday. It's a modern prayer, first appearing in an official Anglican prayer book only in 1979, after nearly 430 years in which English and American Prayer Books had no ash ceremony at all: Archbishop Thomas Cranmer removed the medieval blessing and imposition of ashes when he wrote the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549.