Today, a prayer:
Excepts from the Southwell Litany:
Let us pray, O Lord,
open our minds to see ourselves as thou seest us,
Or even as others see us and we see others,
And from all unwillingness to know our infirmities,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From moral weakness of spirit; from timidity; from hesitation;
From fear of others and dread of responsibility,
Strengthen us with the courage to speak the truth
in love and self-control;
And alike from the weakness of haste
and weakness of moral cowardice,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From dullness of conscience; from feeble sense of duty;
From thoughtless disregard of consequences to others;
From a low idea of the obligations of our Christian calling;
And from all half-heartedness in our service for thee;
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From weariness in continuing struggles;
from despondency in failure and disappointment;
From overburdened sense of unworthiness;
from morbid fancies of imaginary back-sliding;
Raise us to a lively hope and trust in thy presence and mercy,
In the power of faith and prayer;
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From pride and self-will;
from desire to have our own way in all things;
From overweening love of our own ideas
and blindness to the value of others;
From resentment against opposition
and contempt for the claims of others;
Enlarge the generosity of our hearts
and enlighten the fairness of our judgments;
And from all selfish arbitrariness of temper,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From all hasty utterances of impatience;
From the retort of irritation and the taunt of sarcasm;
From all infirmity of temper in provoking or being provoked;
From love of unkind gossip,
and from all idle words that may do hurt,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
From strife and partisanship and division among thy people,
From magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences,
From all arrogance in our dealings with others,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
Finally, O Lord, we humbly beseech thee,
blot out our past transgressions,
Heal the evils of our past negligences and ignorances,
Make us amend our past mistakes and misunderstandings;
Uplift our hearts to new love, new energy and devotion,
That we may be unburdened from the grief
and shame of past faithlessness
To go forth in thy strength to persevere
through success and failure,
Through good report and evil report,
And in all time of our tribulation,
in all time of our prosperity,
save us and help us,
We humbly beseech thee, O Lord.
Blessings,
Ron
