Commontide
Holy Baptism
Almighty and everlasting Father, in your great mercy you saved Noah and his family in the Ark from the destruction of the flood, prefiguring the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Look mercifully upon these your servants. Wash and sanctify them through your Holy Spirit, that they may be delivered from destruction and received into the Ark of Christ’s Church; and being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in love, they may pass through the turbulent floods of this troublesome world and come into the land of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
A prayer at the heart of Anglican baptism since 1549, rooted in one of Christianity's oldest images: Noah's ark as a picture of the Church carrying believers through a turbulent world into everlasting life. Thomas Cranmer adapted it from Martin Luther's 1523 flood prayer, and it ran nearly unaltered through five centuries of English-language worship before its restoration in the ACNA BCP 2019.