Commontide
O God, whose wonderful deeds of old shine forth even to our own day, by the power of your mighty arm you once delivered your chosen people from slavery under Pharaoh, to be a sign for us of the salvation offered to all nations by the water of Baptism: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may be numbered among the offspring of Abraham, and rejoice in the inheritance of Israel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This prayer follows the Easter Vigil's reading of the Red Sea crossing and makes explicit what the church has long seen there: the rescue of Israel from Pharaoh's army as a preview of what baptism does for every nation. Its English text comes from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, but it closely renders a Latin prayer that has stood in this same spot in the Roman Vigil since the early Middle Ages, or possibly earlier.