Commontide
Proper 11
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Original-language source · public domain
BCP 2019, p. 618
Draft — AI-assisted research under editorial review.
One of the oldest collects in Anglican worship, this prayer traces to an early medieval Latin oration prayed in Rome and Gaul by at least the 7th century. Its central claim is elegantly paradoxical: God's greatest exercise of almighty power is not conquest or punishment but mercy, the restraint that spares and the compassion that commiserates.