Commontide
The Ordination of a Priest — the Bishop anoints the hands of the new Priest with the Oil of Chrism
Grant, O Lord, to consecrate and sanctify these hands by this unction and by our blessing, that whatsoever they bless may be blessed, and whatsoever they consecrate may be consecrated and sanctified, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
This prayer is said by the bishop while anointing a new priest's palms with oil at ordination. It is genuinely old, going back roughly a thousand years to a Latin formula used across medieval Western Christendom, but it is new to Anglican prayer books: the Reformation-era English ordinals cut it out entirely, and it returned only in 2019, as an optional ceremony in the ACNA prayer book.