Monthly Archives: October 2012

receive

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Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.

-St. Ignatius

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prayer (I)

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Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
         God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
         The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
         Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
         The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
         Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
         Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
         Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
         The land of spices; something understood.
 -George Herbert

the valley of vision

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Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;
let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty,
Thy glory in my valley.

-Edited by Arthur Bennett, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

anima christi

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Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;

Body of Christ, be my salvation;

Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;

Water of Christ’s side, wash out my stains;

Passion of Christ, my comfort be;

O good Jesus, listen to me;

In Thy wounds I fain would hide;

Ne’er to be parted from Thy side;

Guard me, should the foe assail me;

Call me when my life shall fail me;

Bid me come to Thee above,

With Thy saints to sing Thy love,

World without end.

Amen.

-St. Ignatius, translated by Cardinal John Henry Newman