Prayers of Abandonment

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred,

Let me sow Your love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubting, let me bring Your faith.

Where there is despairing, let me bring Your hope.

Where there is darkness, Your light.

Where there is sadness, let me bring Your joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I might seek,

not so much to be consoled,

as to console.

To be understood, as to understand;

and not so much to be loved, as to love another.

For it is in giving, that we now receive;

It is in pardoning, that we now are pardoned.

And it is in dying, that we are now born again.

Francis of Assisi

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands.

Do with me as You will.

Whatever You may do, I thank you.

I am ready for all. I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me

And in all Your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul.

I offer it to You with all the love of my heart,

For I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

To surrender myself into Your hands

Without reserve and with boundless confidence

For You are my Father.

Charles de Foucauld

My Lord God

I have no idea where I'm going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

And the fact that I think that I am following

Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please You does

In fact please You.

And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know this,

You will lead me by the right road,

though

I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust You always,

though I may seem to be

Lost and in the shadow of death

I will not fear, for You are ever with me,

and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town, to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you entrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne