Commontide
Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful are in joy and felicity: We praise and magnify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course and kept the faith; and committing our brother N. to your gracious keeping, we pray that, together with him and with all those who are departed in the true faith of your holy Name, we may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in your eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
A burial prayer accompanying the Anglican faithful to the grave since 1549, this collect places the committal not in grief but in praise: God is the living host of the faithful departed, and the prayer is first an act of worship before it is a petition. Thomas Cranmer composed it for the first Book of Common Prayer; the 1662 revision softened its original Calvinist edge, and the 2019 text introduces language drawn almost verbatim from 2 Timothy 4:7.