Receive me then, O Eternal Father, for the sake of our Lord's merits and words; for he, by his obedience and his death, hath now merited from thee everything which I do not merit of myself. Into thy hands, my Father and my God, I commend my spirit, my soul, my body, my powers, my desires. I offer up to thy hands, all; to them I commit all that I have hitherto been, that thou mayest forgive and restore all; my wounds, that thou mayest heal them; my blindness, that thou mayest enlighten it; my coldness, that thou mayest inflame it; my wicked and erring way, that thou mayest set me forth in the right path; and all my evils, that thou mayest uproot them all from my soul. I commend and offer up into thy most sacred hands, O my God, what I am, which thou knowest far better than I can know, weak, wretched, wounded, fickle, blind, deaf, dumb, poor, bare of every good, nothing, yea, less than nothing, on account of my many sins, and more miserable than I can either know or express. Do thou, Lord God, receive me and make me to become what he, the divine Lamb, would have me to be. I commend, I offer up, I deliver over into thy divine hands, all my affairs, my cares, my affections, my success, my comforts, my labours, and everything which thou knowest to be coming upon me. Direct all to thy honour and glory; teach me in all to do thy will, and in all to recognise the work of thy divine hands; to seek nothing else, and with this reflection alone to find rest and comfort in everything.' - Fra Thome de Jesu.
'Verses 9-10:--
If thou wouldst learn, not knowing how to pray,
Add but a faith, and say as beggars say:
Master, I'm poor, and blind, in great distress,
Hungry, and lame, and cold, and comfortless;
O succour him that's gravelled on the shelf
Of pain, and want, and cannot help himself
Cast down thine eye upon a wretch, and take
Some pity on me for sweet Jesus' sake:
But hold! take heed this clause be not put in,
I never begged before, nor will again. —Francis Quarles.
1 comment:
Amen~ :)
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