Prayers for communion

Prayers before and after communion, and the great prayers of Eucharistic devotion.

Christians have prayed before and after receiving communion for as long as there has been a Eucharist to receive. The prayers gathered here follow that shape: preparation for communion, devotion to the Blessed Sacrament itself, the prayers said within the liturgy, and thanksgiving after communion. The traditions approach the sacrament differently and their prayers show it. Catholic Eucharistic devotion produced the four hymns Thomas Aquinas wrote for Corpus Christi in 1264, of which the Pange Lingua and its excerpts the Tantum Ergo and O Salutaris Hostia are still sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament around the world. The Anima Christi and the Adoro Te Devote belong to the same devotional stream: prayers addressed to Christ present under the appearances of bread and wine. The Eastern Orthodox tradition places its weight on preparation. The Pre-Communion Prayers, including the prayer of Symeon the New Theologian, are said before the Divine Liturgy and are frank about the petitioner's unworthiness in a way that Western prayers of the same period usually are not. The Cherubic Hymn is sung at the Great Entrance, when the bread and wine are carried to the altar, and the Anaphora of Saint Basil is one of the two great Eucharistic Prayers of the Byzantine rite. The Anglican Prayer of Humble Access, written by Thomas Cranmer for the first Book of Common Prayer, holds the same tension in English: it approaches the table trusting not in its own righteousness but in God's manifold and great mercies. The Agnus Dei, sung at the breaking of the bread, is older than all of these and is shared across the Western liturgical traditions. Each prayer below is given with its full text, its historical context, and the public-domain source it is drawn from.