A Prayer for Before Receiving Communion

Continuing my wandering through the revised St. Augustine Prayer Book today. This is a (small) piece from a substantial section of prayers for preparation before receiving the Eucharist. Praying for our prayers both individually and together, as the Body of Christ, is a good and beautiful thing to which it is good and beautiful regularly to return.

Lord Jesus Christ; I come, as one sick, to the physician of souls; blind, the light of eternal spender; desolate, to the kind source of all consolation; guilty, to the One who offers forgiveness to all; as one in poverty, to the generous Lord of heaven and earth; as a creature, to a most Gracious Creator.

In the abundance of thy great mercies, cleanse my corruption, enlighten my blindness, bring home the wandering, comfort the forsaken, reconcile the guilty, pardon the sinner, forgive the wretched, restore life to the condemned, and give justification to the dead.

I long to receive the Bread of the Angels, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, with reverence and humility, contrition and devotion, faith and single-heartedness, and with such purpose and intention as will strengthen my faith, conform my life to they will, and bring me to know, love, and serve thee more fully.

Grant me so to share in this celebration and to receive the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood that I may know the joy of being made a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of the Household of God. O most loving Father, grant me that thy Beloved Son, whom I now receive veiled from sight, I may at length behold for ever face to face, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.