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The Disciple
O most kind, most loving Lord, Whom I now desire to
receive with devotion, You know the weakness and the
necessity which I suffer, in what great evils and
vices I am involved, how often I am depressed,
tempted, defiled, and troubled.To You I come for
help, to You I pray for comfort and relief. I speak
to Him Who knows all things, to Whom my whole inner
life is manifest, and Who alone can perfectly comfort
and help me.
You know what good things I am most in need of and
how poor I am in virtue. Behold I stand before You,
poor and naked, asking Your grace and imploring Your
mercy.
Feed Your hungry beggar. Inflame my coldness with
the fire of Your love. Enlighten my blindness with
the brightness of Your presence. Turn all earthly
things to bitterness for me, all grievance and
adversity to patience, all lowly creation to contempt
and oblivion. Raise my heart to You in heaven and
suffer me not to wander on earth. From this moment to
all eternity do You alone grow sweet to me, for You
alone are my food and drink, my love and my joy, my
sweetness and my total good.
Let Your presence wholly inflame me, consume and
transform me into Yourself, that I may become one
spirit with You by the grace of inward union and by
the melting power of Your ardent love.
Suffer me not to go from You fasting and thirsty,
but deal with me mercifully as You have so often and
so wonderfully dealt with Your saints.
What wonder if I were completely inflamed by You
to die to myself, since You are the fire ever burning
and never dying, a love purifying the heart and
enlightening the understanding.
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The Disciple
With greatest devotion and ardent love, with all affection and
fervor of heart I wish to receive You, O Lord, as many saints and
devout persons, most pleasing to You in their holiness of life and
most fervent in devotion, desired You in Holy Communion.O my
God, everlasting love, my final good, my happiness unending, I
long to receive You with as strong a desire and as worthy a
reverence as any of the saints ever had or could have felt, and
though I am not worthy to have all these sentiments of devotion,
still I offer You the full affection of my heart as if I alone had
all those most pleasing and ardent desires.
Yet, whatever a God-fearing mind can conceive and desire, I offer
in its entirety to You with the greatest reverence and inward
affection. I wish to keep nothing for self but to offer to You,
willingly and most freely, myself and all that is mine.
O Lord God, my Creator and my Redeemer, I long to receive You
this day with such reverence, praise, and honor, with such
gratitude, worthiness and love, with such faith, hope, and purity
as that with which Your most holy Mother, the glorious Virgin
Mary, longed for and received You when she humbly and devoutly
answered the angel who announced to her the mystery of the
Incarnation: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me
according to thy word."(1)
Likewise as Your blessed precursor, the most excellent of saints,
John the Baptist, gladdened by Your presence, exulted in the Holy
Ghost while yet enclosed in the womb of his mother, and afterward
seeing Jesus walking among men, humbled himself and with devout
love declared: "The friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and
heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom's
voice,"(2) even so I long to be inflamed with great and holy
desires and to give myself to You with all my heart.
Therefore I offer and present to You the gladness of all devout
hearts, their ardent affection, their mental raptures, their
supernatural illuminations and heavenly visions together with all
the virtues and praises which have been or shall be celebrated by
all creatures in heaven and on earth, for myself and all commended
to my prayers, that You may be worthily praised and glorified
forever.
Accept, O Lord my God, my promises and desires of giving You
infinite praise and boundless benediction, which in the vastness
of Your ineffable greatness are justly due You. This I render and
desire to render every day and every moment of time, and in my
loving prayers I invite and entreat all celestial spirits and all
the faithful to join me in giving You praise and thanks.
Let all people, races, and tongues praise You and with the
greatest joy and most ardent devotion magnify Your sweet and holy
name. And let all who reverently and devoutly celebrate this most
great Sacrament and receive it in the fullness of faith, find
kindness and mercy in You and humbly pray for me, a sinner. And
when they have received the longed-for devotion and blissful
union, and, well consoled and wonderfully refreshed, have retired
from Your holy, Your celestial table, may they deign to remember
my poor soul. of God.
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