In his Collect for the Sunday after the Ascension, Cranmer doubled down on emphasizing the power of the Holy Spirit to bring comfort.

The text of the ancient antiphon reads:

Do not leave us orphans, but send upon us the promise of the Father, even the Spirit of Truth.

But Cranmer’s new collect has the people prayer:

We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine holy ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our saviour Christ is gone before:

We noted yesterday that Cranmer replaced “orphans” with “comfortless” and then specified the purpose of the Holy Spirit was to give comfort. But notice he went even further in the next clause. Cranmer connects the comfort of the Holy Spirit with its ultimate work, our eternal salvation: “and exalt us unto the same place whither our savior Christ is gone before.” Cranmer wanted to associate Christ, with salvation and comfort because that too was not the case in the medieval church.

Copyright 2021 John Ashley Null; all rights reserved; used by permission for educational purposes