Seasonal prayers

The Christian year has its own prayers, and most of the ones here come from the Book of Common Prayer, which fixed English collects for each season in 1549 and revised them in 1662. The Collect for Advent Sunday translates an ancient Latin collect and was set in English by Cranmer in 1549. The prayers for Christmas, Lent and Pentecost follow the 1662 text, while the Advent and Easter prayers draw on wider ecumenical use. Advent opens the year in expectation, Lent runs forty days to Easter, and Pentecost closes the cycle fifty days after it. A Thanksgiving Day Prayer sits slightly apart from the liturgical calendar. Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, observed on the fourth Thursday of November, and its prayers descend from the older Christian practice of appointing days of public thanksgiving rather than from the church year.

Catholic

Pange Lingua Gloriosi 1264 AD Stabat Mater 13th century AD The Stations of the Cross: Opening Prayer 17th century AD (formalized); Lasance 1913 Veni Creator Spiritus 9th century AD Veni Sancte Spiritus 13th century AD Victimae Paschali Laudes c. 1040 AD

Orthodox

The Anaphora of St. Basil 4th century AD The Prayer of Ephrem the Syrian 4th century AD; Hapgood 1906

Anglican

The Collect for Advent Sunday Ancient (Latin origin); 1549 (Cranmer translation); 1662 (current form)

Ecumenical

A Christmas Prayer 1662 A Prayer for the Forty Days of Lent 1662 A Prayer for the Holy Spirit at Pentecost 1662 A Thanksgiving Day Prayer Traditional American An Advent Prayer Traditional; BCP 1662 language An Easter Prayer 1662 (BCP form); ancient (Orthodox form)